


Last Hope (Brick By Boring Brick Part 2)

by greenblanketbythefire



Series: Your Adventures In The Final Fantasy Universe [7]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe - Slight Changes but mostly the same, Alternate Universe - Technically Canon But Also Slightly Not, And just kinda gets dropped into a situation by the gods, Anxiety, Astrals Interference, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Noctis is also an aspie, Platonic Soulmates, Reader Loves Mythology, Reader can play the piano, Reader has Asperger’s Syndrome, Reader is From Another World, Reader-Insert, Reader’s knowledge is based on MY knowledge, Sibling Bonding, Soul Bond, Soulmates, The Lord of the Rings References, reader wears glasses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:48:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 41,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26297437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenblanketbythefire/pseuds/greenblanketbythefire
Summary: Following the events of the Rite in Altissia, our reader finds herself with the weight of not one, but two worlds on her shoulders. Now that she knows she shares her soul-brother’s fate, she yearns for a way to change it.(Second part to Brick By Boring Brick; I highly suggest you read that first!)
Relationships: Gladiolus Amicitia & Reader, Ignis Scientia & Reader, Noctis Lucis Caelum & Reader, Noctis Lucis Caelum/Original Female Character(s), Prompto Argentum & Reader, platonic Noctis Lucis Caelum/Reader
Series: Your Adventures In The Final Fantasy Universe [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1322219
Comments: 45
Kudos: 35





	1. A Bleak Outlook

Hazy. My mind was hazy, swimming through a melted puddle of thoughts I couldn’t comprehend. Where was I? What was I doing? Where was Noctis…? Where could everyone be…?

I twisted my body over in the small, compact bed. I opened my eyes only to immediately close them again. It was bright. My hand came to cover my eyes and I opened them again. I allowed them to get used to the light before examining my surroundings.

I was in a train car. More specifically, I was in a private room for sleeping. The other bed was empty. Light glared through the window, showing me fields of grass and rocky cliffs. Nothing too special.

_I could find those on Earth, easily._

Instant sorrow hit me like a cart. I sighed, tired of crying for the past week and turned back over. My eyelids felt so heavy. It was like I had slept for a few weeks straight. I couldn’t remember what I was doing. Why were we on a train again? All I could remember was insisting on following Noctis wherever he went when he told me they were-

Oh. Right. We were going to _Niflheim._

The door opened. Someone stepped in the room, their loud breathing telling me it could only be one person.

“Hey. Time to get up.”

Yep. That was Gladio.

“Mm…” I groaned. We weren’t to Niflheim, yet, right? The train was still moving and we still had several days to wait. I could wait till then to get up.

“You can’t just lay around all day. We got shit to do.”

The blanket was swiftly yanked off me.

“Hey…!” I whined. “What was that for?”

“Get the hell up.”

“You don’t have to be so mean about it…”

“Oh yeah? Too bad. We’re meeting in the car to the right. You better be there.”

He left the door open as he stomped out. I curled up further, happy to just remain as I was even without the blanket. What could they possibly need me for? They didn’t like it when I healed people so if someone was hurt, they could take care of it. Daemons? I wasn’t the best at fighting and they’d be fine just the four of them anyway. There wasn’t anything for me to do.

_So why did you come with them?_

I huffed. It was Noctis. I felt like I _had_ to be with him everywhere now. He was all I had left. It stung my heart to admit it, but… Even in the state I was in now, I had to support him somehow. Even if that was just being near him.

_Exactly. So get up, see what they want, do it, and then go back to bed._

I groaned again. “Ffffine…”

Hauling myself up, I smoothed my hair a bit and pulled on my jacket and shoes before heading out the door and to the right.

The train car was an average one. It was nothing fancy, just booths and seats for people to rest in along the journey. There were a few other groups of people further back. Ignis was near the front, reviewing something on his phone. I sat in the booth on the opposite side of the cart, not wanting to talk to anyone. He glanced at me concernedly but said nothing.

One by one, my other friends joined us. Noctis took the seat across from me, looking bored. Prompto sat next Ignis with Gladio in the seat behind them. All was quiet for a bit. Prompto kept glancing at me. I sighed.

_I’m fine. Stop staring at me. I know you haven’t really seen me in a week, but I was mourning._

I’d spent the last week and a half lying in my room back in Altissia. I wasn’t very hungry. Ignis had to make me eat. Noctis came to visit sometimes but left quickly as I didn’t really say anything. Prompto and Gladio only saw me once through that time and the latter was unusually tenser.

“So…” Prompto broke the silence quietly. “We’re gonna roll through Tenebrae.”

“Not before visiting the royal tomb in Cartanica,” Ignis said just as quietly. It dawned on me this was the first time all five of us had really gotten together in over a week. Besides getting on the train, that is.

“Oh, uh…” Prompto glanced between me and Ignis. “You guys… sure you’re up to that?”

_I’m depressed, not fragile._

“The wounds have mended,” Ignis told him, referring to the fiery scars around his eyes. My chest felt a bit tight as the memory of how he’d gotten them. At least Luna had been able to heal him. “As for _______… I’m not sure.”

I wanted to say something, but my mouth stayed shut.

“_______…?” Noctis nudged me with his foot. All three of them were looking at me.

“You gonna come with us…?” Prompto asked. I remained quiet as someone got up from their seat.

“The hell is wrong with you?” Gladio growled, stepping over to me. “They asked you a question. _Answer it.”_

As much as I wanted to retort, my mouth still wouldn’t work with me.

“Did you hear me?”

“Leave her alone,” Noctis warned him.

“No. She needs to grow up and get over it.”

“‘Get over it’?” Noctis stood. _“Get over_ an entire _world_ being destroyed…?!”

“In case either of you have noticed, the same damn thing’s gonna happen to _us_ if we don’t act!”

“Then it’s _our_ responsibility, _not hers.”_

“No. She was brought here for a _reason._ ”

I was roughly grabbed by the shoulder and shaken a little.

“You hear that? You got a _purpose_ here. Maybe if you’d stop moping about the train, you’d realize that there are people here who are about to go through the same damn thing _you are.”_

Noctis pushed him off. “Don’t. Touch her.”

I slowly looked up at Gladio.

“Finally acknowledging us, huh?” he said.

“I said, leave her _alone,”_ Noctis growled.

“Oh yeah? Then what about you, huh? How’s that ring fit ya? You look like you’d rather carry it around then _wear_ it.”

Noctis hissed. I felt nothing but a slowly rising agitation.

“Luna almost gave her life so you could do your duty, not for you to enable your sister to keep feeling _sorry_ for herself.”

“You don’t think we _know_ that?!”

“You don’t! Ignis took one for _both_ of you, too, and for what?!”

“Enough, Gladio!” Ignis commanded.

“You _think_ you’re a king,” Gladio shot a look at me, lightly hitting my shoulder, “and a _healer,_ but you’re both _cowards.”_

_“Shut up!”_ Noctis pushed him back. “Don’t _touch her.”_

Gladio pushed back, holding his shirt collar. My anger rose further. Prompto and Ignis were quick to their feet. Noctis was ready to shove again.

“Don’t do this!” Prompto pleaded, trying to get Gladio off Noctis. Gladio shoved him away, causing him to stumble and almost fall. I shot to my feet, my arm thrusting out to push Gladio away. Static crackled through the air.

“Don’t hurt Prompto,” I said in one low tone.

“Do you not _get_ it?” Gladio kept pushing. “People are going to _die_ if you don’t get your head out of your ass and do what you’re supposed to. You want them to have the same fate as _your_ people?!”

“At least they’d _die along with it!”_ I seethed. “At least none of them would have the apparently _esteemed privilege_ of being the only survivor and the last one left! At least none of _you_ would have to shoulder the entire burden of being the last of an entire _culture,_ of _multiple histories._ It’d be a _mercy.”_

Everyone paused.

“Gladio, that’s enough,” Ignis told him sternly.

“If _that’s_ the way she thinks, then maybe we should send her back to Accordo,” Gladio said. I hissed and turned away to begin walking back to my room. Static followed me the short distance to it. I froze the door shut when I closed it.

A while later, while I was back to laying in bed, someone knocked. I didn’t answer. Ignis’ voice quietly came from the other side.

“_______…?” he asked. “I assume you are in there?”

I made a monotone sound.

“May I come in?”

_Ignis… Ignis is safe, right? He won’t yell at me like Gladio?_

_I don’t think so, no._

My hand twitched and the ice around the doorknob melted into snowflakes. I made another monotone noise. Ignis tried the door again and stepped inside, closing it behind him. I was facing the wall, not up to looking at anyone.

“I would ask how you’re doing…” he began slowly, “but I believe I already know the answer.”

“Sorry…” I forced myself to say, my voice barely a whisper, “for what I said earlier.”

Ignis sighed. “It isn’t as though you can _un-_ say it. And I understand that Gladio provoked you in the most out-of-line way possible…”

“I don’t know what he expects from me. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Precisely. I don’t think any of us expected you to join us. ...It is a dangerous road ahead and—”

_—Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet—_

“—we don’t want this state you’re in to hinder your abilities. We cannot risk you being harmed, whether by daemons or worse.”

He was quiet for a moment, sitting down on the single chair in the room.

“But we are nevertheless also worried about your emotional state.”

I was quiet. My mind wanted to tell him I’d be fine and that they didn’t have to concern themselves with that. But my mouth knew that was a damn lie and so it kept itself shut.

“You know if you wish to speak your mind about anything, you can always count on myself and the others. Even Gladio, though he may be harder to crack for sympathy.”

An amused exhale was huffed from my nostrils.

“I understand you wish you to be left alone, but I figured I would offer my support before I did so. Would you like me to stay? It shan’t be long before we reach Cartanica.”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

He stood. “Then I’ll make sure to come collect you when we get there.”

He opened the door.

“Take care of yourself, please, _______. For Noct’s sake if not your own.”

“Okay,” I whispered. He left as I snuggled into the bed’s covers.

-

Ignis apparently let me rest longer than the others and came to get me when they were ready to head out to the tomb. I sighed once I was properly dressed and forced my feet to shamble out the door and down the train car hall.

Cartanica was… a place. Not much there, to be honest. The air felt a bit humid, too warm for my liking but I didn’t complain out loud. In fact, my mouth was strictly on ‘do not speak until spoken to’ mode after being yelled at earlier. I followed Ignis quietly to an elevator that would take us down to where the royal tomb was.

Prompto looked excited as we approached. He greeted me cheerfully, happy I was up and about. I managed a wave for him and forced a smile. He gasped.

“Noct!” he grabbed Noctis’ arm, which shrugged him off. “Didja see that?!”

“See what?” Noctis asked.

“She _smiled!”_

The smile dropped and I rolled my eyes.

“Uh, yeah?” Noctis said. “It’s obviously fake.”

“Heyyy, don’t ruin it!”

“You sure you wanna come?” Noct asked me. I nodded but said nothing.

“She should be fine,” Ignis assured him. “I’m thinking perhaps this will be good for her.”

“Alright. If you’re sure.”

Gladio didn’t look at me and I didn’t look at him. The five of us piled into the elevator and off we went.

My first impression of the Fodina Caestino, where the tomb was buried, wasn’t much; it was misty and overgrown, full of mud, dirt; and murky water. And warm. _Too_ warm. I almost wanted to take my jacket off but it was the only thing that currently made me feel comfortable.

“Well, we made it to the quarry,” Gladio said when the elevator reached the bottom.

“But our destination likely lies deeper inside,” Ignis finished.

“Kinda feelin’ out of my element,” Prompto said.

“We’re a foreign species in this environment. Mind we don’t end up prey.”

“Right,” Noctis said. “Good tip.”

_Eh. I’m apparently going to die prematurely anyway._

_But Noctis shouldn’t have to._

More weight was stacked onto my chest. How was I supposed to tell him what would happen?

“Hey, come on,” Gladio snapped. They were moving ahead while I was lost in thought. “Don’t wanna get left behind, do ya?”

I grit my teeth and stalked forward, going straight past him to the front with Noctis. _Nothing_ would come to harm him whilst I was there.

_I’m not letting anything happen to him. Not until I can figure out what to do._

Along with such thoughts came the tugging in my chest again. Noctis glanced at me but said nothing.

The quarry most certainly would’ve been impressive back when it was in operation. They managed to dig out quite a bit, stone cliffs stretching up from the ground all around like giants. Leafy plants had taken control, growing up and over the furthest side of the quarry and spreading out. We walked down the path left by the quarry miners, some of their carts rusting on the side. I cringed when we stepped onto level ground and into the water that now covered the ground, having to wade through it.

We were instantly set upon by what looked like large, blueish green alligators with big fins. And when I say they were large, I mean they were almost as big as me. My sword, Ithilcalad, appeared in my hand. I watched Noctis’ movements carefully, deciding to work alongside him in case something happened.

Nothing did. We hacked and slashed at our attackers with wild abandon until they were dead on the ground. There were a few bites and scratches here and there, but I let the Gladio, Ignis, and Prompto use potions for that. 

“Are you hurt?” I asked Noct. He was dusting himself off.

“I’m good,” he said.

“Are you _sure?”_

He blinked. “I’m fine.”

My shoulders fell. “Okay. Where do you want to go next? I can scout it out first.”

“Uh… What? No, we’re sticking together.”

“But I can’t let anything happen to you, any of you.”

“That’s… why we’re sticking together. So no one gets hurt.”

I sighed. “Please? It won’t take long.”

“Enough with the ‘I’m expendable’ stuff. I’m not risking you getting hurt either, got it?”

With a huff, I said, “Fine…”

The centerpiece of quarry’s first level was a huge machine claw seemily built into a giant tree, as tall as a redwood. It was almost completely covered in vines and other growths, its tower-like shape making it hard to miss. Noctis went straight toward it. I followed close behind.

The entire thing seemed to be broken, tilted and leaning toward us. Noct climbed the metal stairs to the control panel and I sucked in a breath, hoping that wouldn’t bring the entire thing crashing down on all of us. Nothing happened, though, and he found nothing, so he came back down to continue exploring.

We headed off to the left, over some of the tree’s moss covered roots, and came to another tilted control panel.

“Be careful…” I mumbled as Noctis inspected it.

“I am,” he said back. “You don’t have to worry so much.”

_A bit late for that now._

We continued our exploration by heading down into the more overgrown parts. I set my hood over my head so nothing would fall in my hair. We trekked past leafy plants and through muddy puddles until we found a path that was unfortunately blocked by the machine’s claw.

“They parked _here?”_ Gladio asked.

“Huh…” Prompto said. “Wish we could write ‘em a ticket.”

We got closer to it, sliding a little on the slick incline. It was red and silver, a few lights telling us it was still working, and completely blocking our path.

“Nothing but a giant roadblock,” Gladio said.

“Ironic for a vehicle,” Prompto said.

“If we get its motor running,” Ignis suggested, “perhaps we can move it out of the way.”

All the way back up to the main area we went. The slick ground caused a few slip ups, but patience was key as we made sure to stick together. I was practically glued to Noctis’ side, making sure the few monsters we fought never even reached him.

Back along the giant pond of swamp water, we found the first control panel again, still unbalanced and off kilter, not looking good for standing on.

“That looks promising!” Prompto said. Scared the whole thing might come tumbling down from the slightest change in weight, I pushed past Noct.

“Let me,” I told him.

“Wha- hey!” he protested as I shoved him back a little. “What the hell’s with you today?”

_Which button?_ I thought as I ignored him.

“_______?”

I pushed the one that was lit up with green. The machine whirred slightly. Black smoke wafted up from the pipes further up the tree. The machine stopped whirring.

“Hey,” Gladio said shortly. “What’re you stopping for?”

“It stopped by itself,” I shot back just as shortly. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Let’s see here…” Prompto got closer to the machine to read its instructions on the side. “‘In case of power failure, use backup generators’. There’s a key in the shed!”

“Where’s the shed?”

“I think it’s this way,” Noctis said. He gestured for me to follow him. “Come on.”

He headed off immediately. I jogged to keep up, our friends right behind us. The splashing of water would surely draw some more weird alligators to us but I didn’t see any nearby. Thankfully Noct led us back down a sloping path, free of deadly creatures. It led us to - guess what - more puddles! The wall of the quarry blocked us from going further so we had to choose which path to take from there. Noctis chose right. We followed.

The right path was indeed right and we found ourselves at another forked road. There were metal stairs leading up on our left and more wet, muddy ground to the right.

“Up the stairs?” I asked.

“...Nah,” Noctis said. “Keep going this way. Unless you want to explore a bit.”

“I’m staying with you.”

“...Right.”

The path stretched further into the quarry, rocky yet leafy walls surrounding us. We found a still functioning light source in yet another puddle along with another part of the machine. We paid it no mind and kept going.

We traveled through more puddles, going up through a more wilderness-like area. Traversing the wet slopes was getting easier the more we did it. Eventually we found a streetlight and continued past it knowing we were going the right way.

Our trekking led us to an unexpected campsite! Noctis took some of the energy from the magic rocks around it and made magic flasks for Ignis. I took the rest. Ignis suggested a late lunch, to which the guys said yes to. I remained quiet.

I kept watch around the site, standing at the edge and making sure nothing would sneak up on us. Not that it really mattered. The Oracle Runes were meant for sanctuary, so nothing should be able to reach us there. Still, it was good to have that time to reflect on what we’d been doing. It even helped me relax a bit.

What we were doing wasn’t any different than what we had been doing before. Traverse old sites for ancient weapons, eat lunch, make it back somewhere to sleep for the night. And yet… the added weight of what happened in Altissia only made it seem trivial. How could we have spent so much time doing _nothing?_ Traveling and exploring… We had barely made it in time for the Rite! What the hell were we thinking?!

_Noct had to collect the royal arms first, though, right? That was pretty important._

_Somehow it doesn’t feel as important in the grand scheme of things…_

_I’m sure the more he has, the better off everyone will be. He’ll be able to protect himself better._

_Right…_

My eyes scanned the area below us. Only a soft breeze rustled a few of the leaves of the vines everywhere. The bushes shivered. A slow breath left me as I calmed myself. We weren’t in too much of a hurry. If we had time to stop in Tenebrae as Luna had asked, then we had enough time to explore this quarry.

_I suppose I’m just scared I won’t get enough time with them. I have no idea when we’re supposed to… supposed to..._

“Here we are,” Ignis interrupted my thoughts with lunch. “Make sure to leave enough for everyone.”

“No promises,” Noctis said, going straight for the meat of the dish. Ignis sighed.

“Hey, leave some for me!” Prompto scrambled after him.

“A guy like me’s gotta eat, too, y’know,” Gladio was right behind them.

“Just make sure there’s enough for _______,” Ignis said wearily.

“Hey, first come, first serve,” Noct said.

“Not if I give her some of mine!” Prompto declared. My mouth felt odd all of a sudden.

“No fair! That’s cheating!”

Ignis chuckled at their antics. “But it is _warranted_ cheating, Noct.”

“Well?” Gladio asked me. “Are you gonna get some or what?”

Ah. That was it.

I was smiling again.


	2. Fight or Flight? Why Not Both?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reader is having problems concerning her personal safety... again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You thought the last chapter hurt? Just wait 😏

We continued our trekking after lunch was finished. The shed with the key to the generator was a little further up the hill. When we got there, we were set upon by what looked like red voretooths. I stuck by Noctis’ side, slashing with my sword after he did.

It was a whole pack of them. We were busy for a few minutes and I got distracted with electrocuting one. When I turned back to Noctis, he was hacking away at one while another crept up behind him. I had somehow gotten on the other side of the battle. Panic shot through me—he could get _hurt._

Throwing caution to the wind, I sprinted forward, forgetting magic was a thing I had control over. Right as the red voretooth leaped at him, I shoved him out of the way, swinging wide with my sword and only grazing it. I was forced to the ground, the monster’s claws digging into me as it prepared to chomp down.

“_______?!” Noct shouted in shock. _Terrified_ I wouldn’t stay alive long enough to protect him further, I tore an arm free, ignoring the blood now oozing from a stinging, deep scratch, and shoved the thing off. The red voretooth was catapulted off of me in a burst of ice from the ground. It flew over the edge of the hill and hit the ground near the bottom of it, dying instantly.

My chest was heaving. I hissed and gritted my teeth at the pain in my arms. That experience had not been fun. I stayed lying on the ground as Noct hurried to use a potion on me. My whole body relaxed as pain relief spread over me.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah…” I whispered. “I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

He and Prompto helped me up.

“You don’t have to force yourself in front of me every time, though,” Noctis said.

“Yeah, that’s what Gladio does,” Prompto tried to help. “Don’t put yourself in danger for our sake. ...Again.”

I stayed quiet, staring at the ground.

“So… Uh… Oh! Where’s the key?”

The key was in its spot on a metal rack outside the shed. Hopefully it wasn’t rusted over and could work just fine.

“Found it,” Noct said, picking it up.

“Good,” Gladio said.

“That takes care of the key!” Prompto declared.

“And the generators?” Ignis inquired.

“Apparently they’re back by the control panel.”

“Then let’s go,” Noctis said impatiently. We followed him along the top of the hill, fighting more voretooth-like creatures along the way. I made sure to stay in my own lane that time.

Apparently we had gone in a huge circle. After traversing the top of what I thought was a hill, we came back to the base of the giant tree. We climbed over its roots and spotted the control panel in the short distance. Only this time it was being guarded by a gigantoad, the same kind that had almost suffocated me once. I swallowed.

“No way to work the machine with that thing in the way,” Gladio muttered.

“Then we take it out,” Prompto decided. Noctis ran forward and threw his sword, warping with precision straight at the giant toad. I gulped a whimper down at my memories of near suffocation and reluctantly jogged after him with the guys.

The gigantoad was huge, as its name would suggest. It was as tall as Gladio if not taller. It hopped around as my friends took to slashing it down. I stood a little bit behind them, scared and unsure of where to come in if there was only one enemy this time.

I did not have to wait for an opening, though. The toad decided it wanted to try and suffocate me like its brethren and hopped toward me, the ground shaking slightly from its weight. I sucked in a fearful breath and stood my ground, sword raised to try to defend myself this time—only for my feet to carry me to the right and straight into Gladio, almost knocking him over.

“Hey, _watch it,”_ he warned, dropping his greatsword.

“Sorry!” I cried. I scrambled to get out of the way of the toad. It was dead set on squishing me again. I darted several feet away from it and turned around. Noctis warped and cut into its side as it prepared a big jump. It took off right as Gladio gained his footing back and swung at it.

Once again, I panicked. My sword arm swung out, up and then back down.

“Wait, _______!” Ignis shouted, recognizing that pattern of attack. “Not the lightning-!”

I hit the toad dead on and it came crashing down at my feet, fried from the inside out. Except—we were standing in a giant, shallow pond. The lightning energy shot through the water and shocked my friends, causing them to begin twitching and convulsing. Heart contracting with guilt, I stuck my hand out and called the energy back to me.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Gladio demanded once they’d recovered. “One minute you’re sprinting head first into danger, the next you’re running away from it like a coward. And now you have no regard for our safety with that magic of yours? I thought you were better than that.”

I stared at the murky water, feeling small and a hindrance.

“You’re lucky you have control over it. What if someone had gotten seriously hurt?”

“I—I’m s-sorry…” I tried to whisper.

“Sorry’s not gonna cut it if you get one of us _killed.”_

“Gladio, that’s _enough,”_ Ignis commanded. “It was a panicked response. She didn’t realize until it was too late.”

“And we’re fine anyway,” Prompto said, glancing back and forth between us. “She took it back.”

“She got the job done,” Noct said, heading toward the generator at the base of the giant tree. “That’s what matters. Now come on, we’ve got a generator to fix.”

I stood there as they headed to the metal platform in front of us. The feeling of water sloshing around in my shoes made me shiver a little and I’d hate the wet sock feeling later. None of that helped the immense I felt from accidentally hurting my friends. How could I have made such an amateur mistake?

_Maybe ‘cause you_ **_are_ ** _an amateur?_

Right. And it could’ve ended in disaster. Maybe I should swear off the magic until I was in a better mental state…

“She’s wired and ready!” Prompto declared as I slowly joined them. “Give it a go!”

“And don’t blow it up,” Gladio told Noct.

“Thanks for the advice,” he retorted. He inserted the key and the red light on the machine turned green.

“There we have it,” Ignis said.

“Yep! One more to go!” Prompto cheered.

Noctis led us to another metal platform suspended over the tree’s roots. Apparently there was a staircase we could have taken earlier, but no one commented on it. Another generator machine was near the stairs. Noctis inserted the key and we were good to go.

“We’ve got the power!” Prompto declared.

“Might not have it for long, though,” Gladio said. “Hurry up and move the machine.”

“Yes, sir,” Noct said sarcastically.

We headed down the stairs to the main area around the tree. More blue alligator creatures were waiting for us. We took care of them with little issue. I only used magic to heal Noctis. Then we headed to the control panel. Once activated, smoke rose up from the vents further up the tree. The sound of rocks and boulders clattering echoed through the quarry as the claw blocking the path downward was lifted.

“Did you hear that?” Noctis asked, sounding happy we’d fixed the problem.

“Sounds like we’re clear!” Prompto said.

“Grand!” Ignis said, also pleased.

“Then let’s move,” Gladio prompted.

We took the path back down to the red and black claw, sloshing through the water and mud. An opening had revealed itself! Our hard work and exploration had paid off. Before we went through it, though, Gladuo stopped us.

“Hold up,” he said. Noctis and I stopped and turned around. “You sure you’re ready for this? You got what it takes?”

Guilt stung me as his gaze passed over me.

“To do what?” Noct asked. Gladio slowly walked up to him.

“To face your ancestors and _convince_ them to lend you their strength. Got a long road ahead.” He crossed his arms. “Can you see this through? To the end?”

“Can and will. Whether I like it or not, I’ve got a duty to fulfill—as king.”

“You’re damn right you do. Then that means you’d better start taking this seriously. _Both_ of you.”

He stomped past us as Noctis sighed shortly. I crossed my arms and hugged myself. I _was_ trying to take this seriously, but it was _incredibly_ _difficult_ when the weight of not one but _two_ worlds was resting on my shoulders along with the fact that—

_I’m not thinking about it. I’m not thinking about it. Can’t think about it. We are avoiding more mental breakdowns._

“Good to go,” Noctis said, heading further into the quarry.

“We did it!” Prompto cheered. “Together!”

A small smile found its way onto my face at his optimism.

“The cave’s _huge!”_

I made the mistake of inhaling deeply.

“And the tomb is further in,” Ignis said.

There was something… _awful_ in the air. I couldn’t even begin to describe the scent. It was like rotten eggs had been scrambled with methane and seasoned with mold. My stomach turned. I heard someone sniff.

“Man, something _stinks_ around here!” Prompto declared. I nodded in agreement before pulling my shirt over my nose. It didn’t do much to help. “Don’t slip and fall into whatever that is.”

The roots of the giant and the cliff walls of the quarry opened out into a huge clearing. It was filled with dirty mist, more plants sprouting up through the mud and dirt, and—

_7/10, too much water._

We followed Noct as he crept through the ferns and small bushes. I watched him with a churning stomach as he warped out to clash with more blue alligators. I pressed a hand to my middle, unsure if lots of movement would help dissipate the feeling. It felt like my stomach was in my throat now, ready to give up the lunch Ignis had made for us.

“Are you coming or what?” Gladio called as the other three joined Noct. I shook my head and readied an ice magic blast. When it looked like my friends were on the outskirts of the fight, I mustered all my discomfort and shoved it into an attack. The alligators fell after a few more blows.

“That good?” I asked, nausea rising and falling _ever_ so slowly.

“You’re looking rather green,” Ignis observed.

“Hate this smell…”

“Same,” Noctis didn’t sound much better. “Let’s find the tomb so we can get outta here.”

We found an alcove along the left wall, covered in vines, mud, and the tree's roots. Odd, sac-like growths were hanging in the way of the entrance, smelling just as bad as the rest of the area.

“What _is_ this?” Prompto asked, looking confused.

“I hate eggs,” Gladio commented. My stomach lurched at the thought. I moved away from the weird alcove.

“Think I’m gonna stand elsewhere…” I muttered.

“Are you alright?” Ignis asked.

“I will be when we get out of here…”

“Do we really wanna know what’s back there?” Prompto asked, also not too eager to be around those eggs. Before anyone could answer, there was a disturbance in the water.

An enormous green monster thrust up through the water. It seemed to be a giant _plant,_ perhaps similar to a Venus flytrap. Only _this_ thing had tentacles all over its body, at the base, above its mouth, and below its mouth. And good God—the _stench._ So _that’s_ where it came from. My stomach lurched again at the scent and I bent over, ready to heave. Thankfully, nothing came out—yet.

“That looks like a mouth,” Prompto said. “Is that its _face?”_

“It’s a malboro!” Ignis told us. I stumbled backward to try and protect my poor nose from its smell. “_______, it’s weak to fire!”

“Right,” I croaked. I summoned Ithilcalad. “One fire blast coming up.”

I tried my best to shove the nausea down. Flames lit up the length of my blade and I ran forward to follow Noctis’ lead as he began hacking away at the malboro. Prompto fired off several bullets as Gladio swung up at some of the tentacles, severing one. Ignis asked for flames on his spelldaggers and I obliged. The smelly monster shrieked at our burning cuts. More shrieks came as a few, smaller malboros entered the scene and went for Prompto. Happy to get away from the big one, I ran off to help him, jerking my arm to the side and lighting one aflame.

There was a sudden hiss as I jammed my sword into one of the baby malboros. Ignis shouted for us to scatter. I did not make it out of the way in time and was blasted with a smoky cloud of nauseous gas. My very lungs burned as I got the full brunt of it, unable to breathe, gasping for oxygen, and officially losing my lunch. Someone grabbed my arm and yanked me outta there. I looked up to thank Gladio for that.

Every movement hurt from then on, my slashes and swings not as powerful as the gas I breathed in seemed to have poisoned me. I wheezed as I swung my arm out. An explosion of flame caused the malboro to slump over.

As Noctis crushed a potion over me, Ignis shouted, “Now! With everything we have!”

We rushed the slumped malboro, cutting into it with our full strength. This only proved to anger it, however, and it righted itself and showered us with more poisonous gas.

“The hell’s wrong with this thing?” Gladio shouted.

“Keep at it!” Ignis called back. “It should perish soon! _______!”

“On it,” I coughed, wincing in pain from the poison. Noctis began tossing his sword at the malboro like crazy, warping sounds going wild. I told him to hold back and lit the damn thing up again, aiming for the mouth this time. The malboro roared and scooted across the ground at me. I sucked in a terrified breath as its attack shot towards me.

In came Noctis, ready to shove me out the way. But I panicked with a scared whimper and my feet carried me away from the scene far too quickly and instead of getting us both to safety, _he_ took the attack. I rushed forward to heal him.

“Sorry—I’m sorry—!” I breathed as he coughed.

“It’s fine,” he told me.

“It’s useless!” Gladio shouted.

“What do we do?!” Prompto cried.

“This might be a good time to panic,” Noctis said, still coughing.

“No, there must be a way!” Ignis said. “_______, forgive me for this but you must distract it!”

_“What?!”_ I cried in shock. “Why _me?!”_

“Use your abilities—there is water all around us, it’s weak to fire. The rest of you, away!”

“What the hell are you thinking?!” Noctis shouted. “All five of us hardly did anything to it!”

“We need to _trust her,_ Noct. Now get out of the way!”

The malboro was shaking wildly, spitting poisonous gas. Water was sloshing everywhere as my friends retreated elsewhere. The sudden feeling of abandonment dampened my spirits—how could they just leave me alone?!

_‘There is water all around us.’_

_Water…_ _Water and fire…_

The monster’s tentacles shot out to strike me. I sprinted left and out of the way. It was then a matter of running circles around it, slicing at the growths whipping at me and the smaller malboros.

_Water and fire, water and fire, what can I do with water and fire—?_

_Oh._

Two tentacles whipped out at me. I swung my sword sharply to the right, cutting them in half. The beast shrieked and poured gas all around. I turned tail and ran out of the way, further down the clearing.

_Waterbend, waterbend, I can do half of what a waterbender can do._

It was simply a matter of calming my mind long enough to concentrate. The malboro was slow and now far away enough for me to get a better view. It was sitting in the water, gone berserk and a danger even to itself. I could freeze it. I could restrict its movements and light it on fire. Good. A plan.

I let my arms wave up and down, trying to lift water, get it to respond to me. I couldn’t move it, but the area around me slowly started to freeze, slush on the surface. Perfect. I closed my eyes and kept it up. My arms flowed out to the side and back in, further freezing the muddy pond. Gladio shouted for me to get a move on.

With a sudden burst of energy, I shot out back towards the malboro with a passionate will to _protect._ My legs carried me through the mud and straight past the monster’s babies. I could _not_ let _any_ of them continue to hurt my _friends._

The water fully froze behind me as I ran. I stumbled a bit and found myself on top of the ice, its slide boosting my speed. When I reached the malboro, I slid a little on the ice and came to a skidding stop. My arms swung backward and then I made a hard shoving motion. The water exploded upward and froze the malboro’s lower tentacles solid, keeping it from moving. My hands circled inward to my chest. I summoned my anguish and fear and shoved my hands back out.

The area lit up with a blazing bonfire as the malboro burned from the inside, out. I was panting and struggling to keep my balance on the ice.

_“Now!”_ I heard Ignis command. The malboro broke free of its ice prison and pelted us with more gas. Then it turned on me, mouth gaping open, as my friends sprinted to defend me. Every speck of my fighting spirit vanished as I stared up at it. It was over twice my size with a hulking form. Its leafy skin was half charred and smoldering, and it was wheezing from its own gas and the smoke from my flames. I felt as though it’d spit my fire right back at me, chew me up, and spit me back out to die.

_To die._

**_I don’t want to die._ **

Panic flared through me as it attacked. I threw myself to the left, crashing into Gladio, who in turn bumped into Ignis.

“Hey, _watch it!”_ Gladio roared.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” I breathed, taking off in the opposite direction. I narrowly avoided Noctis and almost ran into Prompto as I scrambled to find somewhere _safe_ to hide. I had given my contribution. The guys had it handled.

And handle it, they did. It was difficult with the ice blocking them from attacking and I melted it too slowly, but they took the malboro down as I stood fifteen feet away, petrified.

“We did it!” Prompto cheered, out of breath. “Phew!”

“Well done, everyone,” Ignis told us. “Especially you, _______. You did your part almost perfectly.”

“Perfectly?” Gladio scoffed. “She nearly knocked both of us over.”

“A minor transgression compared to the chunk of health she took off the malboro. And that is exactly what I was counting on.”

“So what do we do about those eggs?” Prompto asked, glancing back to the alcove in the cliff wall.

“I think we burn it,” Noctis said, glancing at me. “You up to it?”

I nodded, regaining the strength to walk again.

“That was _so_ cool, _______!” he gushed. “You were running on the _water!_ I got so many good shots of that!”

I smiled sheepishly. “Thanks…”

With one arm outstretched, there was a fiery explosion and the eggs in our way fried up. The royal tomb was revealed to us and I wondered why the _hell_ it was in such a stinky, disgusting place. Who would bury a _king_ here?! It wasn’t even part of Lucis!

“I think we found it!” Prompto said cheerily.

“Just wish they found a better place to build it.” Noctis knew exactly what I was thinking. He unlocked it with the key Cor had given us what felt like so long ago.

The tomb looked like all the others with only two differences: a different weapon displayed on the coffin and it was half filled with—you guessed it—water. Noctis lifted his arm to reach towards the katana on the coffin. It flashed light blue and rose up to hover in the air before swooshing down into his chest. His armiger flashed around him before dissipating.

“Alright,” Gladio said. “Let’s haul ass.”

“Yeah, let’s,” Prompto agreed. Happy to get out of this drenched hellhole, I followed them back into the watery clearing.

“A moment?” Ignis called for us to stop halfway to the path leading back up.

“Is everything okay?” Gladio asked as we turned around.

“It bloody well isn’t. And I won’t suffer this pointless bickering in silence any longer.”

I stared at the scars around his eyes, heart sinking. Did we really have to do this now?

“I understand you are upset I took one for the team, Gladio, but if it were not for _______ healing Lady Lunefreya, I may very well have been rendered with permanent loss of sight. In fact, _______ has done nothing but give since the moment she landed here; she has done _nothing_ to deserve your frustrations.”

“Ignis, you don’t have to—” I tried to tell him, skin feeling uncomfortable under my heated jacket.

“But I do, ______. We were there at the Rite. What we went through there, we went through together. I will not stand idly by as you continue to risk your life for us only to be condemned for it.”

_Risk your life…_

I hissed in a breath and wrapped my arms around myself, looking down at my feet.

“Who the hell is condemning her?” Gladio asked.

_“You_ are, Gladio. From the _moment_ she received news of her home, you have done nothing but berate her for what she’s gone through, and I have grown tired of it.

“Yes, she has a role to fulfill here that will be phenomenally difficult to fall into, but she will come into it at her own pace. None of us have any right to tell her how to feel. …And I’m sure we were all surprised she even left her room long enough to tell us she wanted to come with us to Gralea.

“She has the weight of two worlds on her shoulders. She has no obligation to any of us, she could have chosen to leave at _any_ moment. And yet in spite of this… she would remain with us all.”

“Sorry, but I object,” Gladio said, causing my heart to contract with guilt. “War is a matter of life and death. She’s not gonna survive as she is with poor reaction time and constant bumbling into us.”

“But _we’ll_ be there!” Prompto protested.

“It’s not about _us_ looking out for _her!”_

“Uh huh.” Prompto didn’t sound convinced. “Then I agree with Ignis—she should be free to choose.”

“There’s more to it than just what _she_ wants! Did you forget she _electrocuted us?_ On _accident?”_

“Please stop…” I mumbled.

“She fixed it and she can _heal,”_ Prompto countered.

“Oh yeah? And what’s gonna happen if someone gets seriously hurt or worse, huh? What if someone _dies_ because of an amateur’s mistakes?”

“I said _stop!”_ I cried, hugging myself tighter. They fell silent, staring at me, waiting. My throat felt dry and tight. It was getting difficult not to cry. I took a deep breath and let it out. “I get your point, Gladio, really. If I didn’t have a good reason to be here, believe me, I wouldn’t be dragging you all down now.”

“You’re not dragging anyone down,” Noct told me. I shook my head.

“He’s right, Noct. I’m not well trained yet at all. I keep panicking and making mistakes—I don’t want to be the reason one of you gets killed. But that’s the thing. I’m here _because_ I don’t want you to… to… I _can’t_ let you die. I’m your… your soul twin and if I just let you go off without my healing abilities, I’d never forgive myself.”

They remained quiet.

“If it gets too much, I’ll let you guys handle it, okay? Just let _me_ make sure you all make it out alive. Especially you, Noct…”

“And she isn’t completely defenseless.” Ignis pushed his glasses up. “I knew she would be able to defend not only herself but us as well against that malboro. And she did her part beautifully. You can’t deny that.”

“...Then what say His Majesty?” Gladio asked, clearly not pleased we were all against him.

“Noct, you are King. One cannot lead by standing still. A king pushes onward always, accepting the consequences and never looking back.”

Ignis took a step forward through the water.

“Gladio, both _______ and Noct _will_ take their rightful places, but only once they’re ready.”

Prompto sent Gladio a nod in agreement with Ignis. Gladio sighed and turned around, walking to the path to the rest of the quarry.

“Have it your way,” he said. “We’re still taking a big risk. We better _all_ be ready.”

Prompto sighed, shaking his head in exasperation, before following after him. Ignis and I exchanged a glance. I gave him the most grateful look I could as he joined them, leaving Noct and me standing there.

A moment passed. Then…

“Y’know…” Noctis said somewhat awkwardly. “You don’t have to worry so much.”

I shook my head, staring back at the ground.

“I do,” I whispered. “I can’t…”

_Can’t let anything happen to you…_

But the words wouldn’t leave my lips. My hand left its place in hugging me to reach and take Noct’s wrist.

“I know,” he said gently. “Just let us handle it, okay? We’ll…” He let out a breath. “We’ll take care if you, too.”

He slipped away only for me to catch his hand.

“Noct…” I said, still unable to look at him.

“...Yeah?”

“If anything happens to me at the end of all this… don’t forget me, okay?”

He gave me a bewildered look. “Well, yeah, I… Uh, _hey. Nothing’s_ gonna happen to you, alright? I promise.”

Sadness settled over my heart. “Okay…”

I looked at him finally.

“...I trust you.”

It was a long trip back up the quarry. I managed to dispose of monsters with little issue. We made it back to the train station by nightfall. The guys went to get some dinner from the food car while I headed back to my room, just wanting _rest._ I nestled into the blankets and slipped into a light sleep.

An hour or so later, I was woken by someone knocking at my door. I mumbled for them to come in, still half asleep. Turning over, I found Ignis sitting down in the same chair as before, looking solemn.

“Hey,” I said quietly. He nodded his greeting.

“How are you feeling?” he asked. I shrugged best as I could while lying down.

“Okay, I guess. Thanks for… sticking up for me. You really didn’t have to say anything.”

“I know, but I felt I had to. Nothing would have been resolved if I hadn’t… But I cannot help but also feel concerned. Gladio did have a point: your anxiety seems to be running rampant. I understand you are worried for Noct, and the rest of us… But flinging yourself into danger, once again, is not the answer to this. Nor is turning tail and fleeing at the last moment.”

I curled up into the fetal position. “I know… I… It’s not an excuse, but… I can’t… It’s like it just… _happens.”_

“...Which is why I’m so concerned.” He pushed his glasses up. “I’ve had this feeling for a while now, but I need it confirmed, if you would.”

“What is it?”

“...I just _cannot_ shake the feeling that your grief for Earth is not the only thing on your mind.”

My eyebrows furrowed slightly. What did he mean by _that?_

“You were there during the Rite,” Ignis continued quietly. “As I said earlier, we were there _together,_ and I feel you have a right to know what I saw. Just before I reached the Altar, Pryna showed me a vision, also.”

My head moved slightly towards his voice. He saw a vision, too? Was it… the same one…?

“The way you look at Noct… It’s exactly the same as I feel when I see him.”

“...What did you see?” I asked in a hopeless whisper.

_Please don’t say it, please don’t say it, please be something_ **_good._ **

“...What will happen at the end of our journey…” he admitted quietly. “What the gods really need you and Noct for.”

My chest was seized by some odd desperation. I slowly lifted my head to look at Ignis, eyes glistening with that emotion. Did he really know what I had seen? Would someone finally understand?

“You saw it?” I breathed, sitting up now. “You saw-?”

“Noct… and you…” Ignis pushed his glasses up, leaving his hand in front of his face for a moment. My sight began to swim as the fact he was about to say hit me for the millionth time in the last week, “sacrificing your lives for us.”

That was it. That was exactly what I needed in order for the waterworks to start back up again. No one had explicitly _told me yet_ that I was supposed to die. Hearing it from someone else finally solidified the concept. It was really going to happen.

I sniffed. The water that was bunched up in my eyes spilled. For the millionth time in the last week, I began crying yet again. Ignis stood quickly as my hands came up to wipe at my eyes. I felt the warmth of his hand on my shoulder. My tears confirmed his suspicions that our visions were similar if not the same.

There was one thought, just one thought I wanted to convey in the flurry of emotions I was feeling right then. It was hard to choke back the tears, but I managed it. I managed to shove the soft sobs back and quietly cry,

_“I don’t want to die…!”_

It was followed by more tears and somewhat louder breaths as I tried to calm myself down. 

“I don’t want to die…” I hiccuped. “I don’t— I don’t—”

Ignis shushed me gently. He let me cry quietly until I managed to push those feelings down long enough to look up at him helplessly. And when I did…

I saw he was crying, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Toldja~
> 
> ^w^


	3. And Then There Were Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the way to Tenebrae, the train is besieged.

The next day passed on slowly. Though, I did feel much better after sorting out all my feelings yesterday. Now I _really_ felt like I was waking up from a long winter’s nap. Everything that morning felt like it was back to normal; or at least—as normal as it could be. I actually ate breakfast and lunch with everyone (to their surprise)! I retreated to my room afterwards, though. And it was in my room that something strange happened.

I was staring out the window at the scenery around us. Luna had asked us to stop in Tenebrae shortly for her, just to check in on everything. However, it _looked_ like we were heading for a giant wall of _clouds._ Big, wispy, white masses lined the distant horizon. I remembered seeing pictures of cloud structures like that back home, but I couldn’t remember what it was called or why it happened. Was Tenebrae always like that? Or was this just as weird to the people living there as it was to us?

As I contemplated all of this, the world around me faded to a grayish blue hue. I didn’t take much notice as I was preoccupied with the weird clouds. Maybe the sun was going down already. Evening had been coming earlier, anyway. Maybe this world’s seasons just worked differently from mine and the sun went down sooner in summer rather than starting that in the fall.

The door slammed open and I spun around in shock, heart fluttering a little.

_“Show yourself!”_ Noctis raged as he stood in the doorway. He looked _pissed._ Then he paused in his anger as he realized it was just me.

“Uh, hey…” I greeted him awkwardly and slightly concerned. Had he and Gladio gotten into another fight? “You okay?”

He let out a hissed breath and opened his mouth to speak. Before he did, I spotted someone in the hallway next to him and my heart almost stopped.

I gasped and stood straight up. _“Noct_ - _”_

“Uh, Noct…” _Ardyn_ said at the same time, looking concernedly at my brother. Noctis swung his left fist out at him. The man disappeared. I noticed the blue-gray tone of the world.

“That son of a bitch…” Noctis seethed.

“Noctis, what’s going on?” I asked, starting to shake a little with worry. “Why is the world gray?”

“I don’t know. Stay close.”

“Right.”

_What the hell is_ **_he_ ** _doing here?!_

“Noctis, how did he find us? What do we do?” I asked as we made our way through a connecting section on the train.

“Ignis said his ship is the only one that stayed behind when the empire retreated at the Rite. He must have followed us.” Noctis hissed in a breath. “I’m not letting him get away this time.”

We came into a passenger car. The sun glistened more on the gray surfaces. People seemed to be frozen in their places. Had _time_ stopped?!

“C’mon, Noct, you’re scaring me!” Ardyn was standing at the end of the car. Seeing activated some primal instinct in me. One look at him and my blood was boiling. Like Noctis, I saw red. I _needed_ to _end him._

_“You.”_ I took off after him, just behind Noctis. Ardyn turned around and hurried out of the car.

“Seriously, guys, cut it out!”

_Is he_ **_taunting us?_ **

It didn’t _sound_ like he was. In fact, as we raced after him, shoving doors open, it seemed more like he was genuinely worried about what was happening to us. But that was just like him, wasn’t it? Pretending to be concerned when he really wasn’t. Leading us on a _chase._

“It’s not safe.” He truly did sound concerned there. “Plus, you’re causing a scene.”

We reached the end of another passenger car. Noctis summoned a weapon and lashed out.

_“You think this is_ **_funny_** _?!”_ he shouted. Seeing Noctis so upset activated yet another raging instinct. I stuck my arm out without thought, my entire body warm with heated memories of the Rite. A burst of flames erupted where Ardyn stood and he stumbled out of the way of both us just in time.

“Dude, are you seriously trying to kill me?”

More heat flared up my body.

“Why _wouldn’t I?”_ Noctis said for both of us as I stormed the man into the small area at the back of the car. “I’ve got you now.”

We cornered him, ice freezing his feet in place. His back was against the wall. I briefly wonder _why_ he would let us do this but decided it was just another taunting tease.

“What’re you after?” Noctis further pushed him against the wall, arm against his chest. “Following us around this whole time? It’s all **_your_ ** _fault!”_

“You’ll pay for what you did to Ignis.” I lifted my hand palm up, a flame dancing upon it.

“What are you talking about?” Ardyn asked calmly, glancing at me almost heartbrokenly. “Do you really mean that?”

_“Of_ **_course_ ** _we do!”_ Noctis shouted as I merely hissed it. Noctis then threatened, “You can’t talk your way out of _this.”_

Ardyn began struggling to get out of Noct’s grip. “You won’t even _let me.”_

I raised my hand further up, now aiming at his head. The flames spread further up my arm to my wrist. Ardyn looked at me.

“______, _please._ Can’t we _talk_ for a sec?”

I paused. Ardyn’s speech patterns had changed and I didn’t know how to process it. Surely he would’ve dropped it by now?

_He’s just taunting you again._

_“Never,”_ I spat, heat soaring through my veins once again. The flames disappeared and pure, white light filled my hands and I surged forward. Before I could make contact, though, the train lurched and screeched to a halt, and the magic faded as I became more concerned with keeping my feet. We all fell over anyway, the thin ice keeping Ardyn’s feet to the floor breaking.

My head hit the floor hard, and a sudden unbearable _pain_ hit it before everything went dark.

When I came to, I was being gently laid down in my room. My eyes opened slowly. A throbbing pain pulsed in my head. I saw Noctis standing over me, Prompto just behind him.

“Noct…?” I mumbled. There were a few short explosion sounds coming from outside. People were screaming down the hall. “What’s happening?”

“The empire’s attacking the train,” Noct told me. “You must have hit your against the wall when we fell. Stay here, okay? We can’t let them use this as an excuse to kill you or capture you.”

“But—I can help—”

“Noct, we have to hurry,” Prompto prompted.

“If you _have_ to do something, stay with the people,” Noctis told me as he and Prompto went for the door. “Let us handle everything else, okay? Ignis and Gladio are in the engine room. We’ll try to be quick.”

My heart lurched as he left. _Without me._ “Wait, Noct!”

Prompto shut the door, but not before glancing at me with a slight smirk on his face. My expression twisted into one of utter confusion. What the hell was going on?

My head was throbbing. I whimpered at the pain before standing up and rushing to the door, holding a hand to my forehead. Gunfire sounded from outside. Glass broke somewhere. More distant screams filled my ears.

_Where did they go?! Where’s the engine room?!_

“Noct!” I called out, heart seized with worry. I rapidly glanced left and right. Where had they gone? Why did Prompto look at me like that? We were being attacked?? _Why?_ Did Niflheim know we were on the train somehow? Why else would they attack so many innocent people?

A high pitched scream pierced my already aching head. My head jerked to the right. It sounded like a little kid. I hesitantly moved out from my room and down the hall. The train shook and rumbled, the sound metal screeching furthering my headache. When I reached the end of the car, I opened the door and crossed the connecting section to the next.

Two Magitek soldiers had burst through the windows into another bedroom car. One of them was facing a little girl holding a chocobo plushie while the other barred a few other civilians from reaching her. Her mother was frantic, crying out for someone to help. My heart contracted as I stood watching, wishing the pain in my head would go away.

_You know… You can_ **_do_ ** _something about it._

My thoughts jolted me into action. The MT facing the girl was getting closer. I began to panic. What could I do in such a small space that _wouldn’t_ hurt everyone in it? The girl was crying, frozen in place and hugging her plushie. What was I supposed to do? I didn’t want to electrocute everyone again!

The temperature dropped several degrees as I worried. Then an idea popped into my head. My fingers curled in on themselves, frost covering them. I pulled my hands in and shoved them in front of me. The Magitek soldiers instantly froze in place, covered in ice. I darted forward, weaving through the few other people, a light blue trail following me. There were a few awed reactions but I ignored them.

The first MT had an arm free and tried to swing at me with its sword. I narrowly ducked and emerged between it and its companion. Summoning Ithilcalad, my arms retracted left and swung out, hitting the second MT dead-on and shattering the ice. Then I shoved it right back out the window before dealing with the other one. When both were disposed of, I turned back to the little girl and crouched down.

“Are you okay?” I asked, out of breath. My hand lifted, glowing blue. “Are you hurt?”

I helped her up anyway, activating my healing magic just in case. She nodded and sniffed.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. Her mother came rushing forward, thanking me profusely. I told her it was no problem and that they should probably go elsewhere to find safety. She picked up her daughter and left, the other two strangers following suit after thanking me, too. I sighed and decided to tag along just in case something like that happened again.

We all hid out in a mostly intact car. I stood guard by the door, sword in hand. The train thankfully began moving again after a few minutes. A weight was lifted off my chest. The small crowd behind me murmured their own relief as we slowly chugged along. Our short peace did not last long, though.

More gunfire could be heard overhead. The train shook again, causing some people to start panicking again. I went to look outside the window. A tune filtered up from my pocket. I took my phone out of it; Ignis was calling. As I answered with a hello, I glanced up through the window. My heart did a little jump.

“_______, are you safe?” were Ignis’ first words through the speaker.

“Yeah, I’m good,” I told him. “Have you seen Noct and Prompto?”

“That’s what I called to tell you. We’re being followed by imperial airships. It looks like Noctis is warping to them to bring them down. See if you can’t use your magic to help.”

“On it.”

I hung and almost set foot out the door when another idea sparked my head. I turned around and pressed a hand to the wall. A decent supportive layer of ice spread over the walls and would cover the door when I left. A few people looked panicked so I told them, “I’ll come back when it’s safe. Stay here.”

The train shuddered as I crossed cars. The next one over had shattered windows. I stepped carefully over broken glass. Wind whipped into the room. I watched the skies for the airships.

There were several of them. A glimpse of Noctis’ warp trail led from the third one to the second as the third burned and fell. My fingers half-clenched, this time crackling with electricity. My body twitched at the sound of gunfire, renewing my awareness of my headache. I looked for a car Noctis hadn’t taken down and wasn’t on.

I yanked my arm up and down, an impressive lightning bolt only _just_ hitting the fifth airship in the line. There was a burst of flame but it was still aloft. My fingers curled again. My arm swung out to the right. An explosion of flame lit up the whole thing—they were down. I repeated that strategy with the fourth one as Noctis took care of the first and warped to the top of the train.

Sighing with official relief, I headed back to melt the ice layer and tell everyone the soldiers were gone. I then texted Ignis to ask where the engine room was.

_Iggy:_ Up near the front of the train. We’ll meet you halfway.

_Me:_ on my way

It was a somber march there as I took in all the damage those MTs had done to the train. Glass and debris were everywhere, littering the floors, covering the tables. A couple people were cowering in seats or behind anything they could find. I stopped to make sure they were alright before heading on, healing one person of a nasty cut from some broken glass.

I apparently took too much time finding Ignis and Gladio. When I finally reached them, we were going through a tunnel. However, they were already looking a bit dark.

“_______, thank heavens you're alright,” Ignis said when he saw me. “We’ve just received word from Noct.”

“Where is he?” I asked worriedly. “And Prompto? Something weird was happening earlier.”

Ignis paused before answering, eyes shifting downward grimly. “Noct is alright, but… We lost Prompto.”

My heart _plummeted._ “What…?”

“Noct said he pushed him off the train—”

“He _what?”_

“—something about Ardyn making him.”

My entire body went rigid and cold. A brief memory flashed through my mind.

_I gasped and scooted back to get away. Before Ignis could rush in to help me, Ardyn!Gladio dissipated his sword._

_“Oh, dear,” he said. “Was I that transparent?”_

“Oh my _god…”_ Tears leapt straight to my eyes. The Ardyn we had seen earlier, the Prompto Noctis pushed off the train… They had been _switched._ And the last thing Prompto had seen us do… ...was threatening to _kill him._ _“No…!”_

_No, no, no, I can’t lose Prompto. I can’t. I just can’t. I just made new friends and now I’m already losing them…!_

My breathing picked up. It was labored as I tried to control it before I started panicking. Dread spread through my whole body, a few tears streaking down my cheeks.

“Hey, you’re gonna be fine,” Gladio tried to help. “I’m sure he’s out there somewhere.”

“We have— We have to—” I gasped. “We have to— find him— Go back—!”

They led me to a table to sit down as the train began to shake again. Screams rose up from the front of the train. My panic was almost forgotten as we wondered what was going on.

“Daemons,” Ignis deduced as a few people came bursting into the room and through the car. “Noct said there were stowaways.”

“Then let’s help him out,” Gladio decided. I followed them so I’d forget about my impending panic attack.

When we were about one car forward, the tunnel half-opened into a view of the sea and some beautiful, misty waterfalls. Imps were climbing the windows as more people ran past us. I spotted something out the window at the same time as Ignis.

“My word,” he said, stopping with me to stare. “Is that…?”

“Leviathan…” I finished under my breath. The sea goddess did an arch over the water, roaring as she swam along. She continued her coils, and then she rose out of the water, a giant waterspout next to her, and shrieked. Her watery orbs from the Rite appeared in the sky and shot forward. The train shook violently, almost getting derailed, but steadied itself as Leviathan shrieked again. Water droplets rained down on us, shimmering in the sunlight and forming a light rainbow as they faded. We continued on toward Tenebrae, and she disappeared into the sea. “I guess Noct really did get her blessing…”

“And what a brilliant blessing it is,” Ignis confirmed. “Come, we must find him. Quickly!”

Noctis managed to get back in the train fairly easily. When I finally spotted him near the back of it, the strange tugging in my chest began and I gasped desperately, hurrying to throw my arms around him.

“You’re okay!” I breathed in relief. He slowly returned the hug, squeezing me a little.

“I… lost Prompto…” he hissed, voice sounding tight. I hugged him harder.

“It’s okay—”

“No! It’s not! I-I _pushed_ him! I- ...It’s all my fault…”

“It was Ardyn. He- can change forms. I’ve seen it before. It’s _not_ your fault, Noct, you didn’t know…”

I reluctantly retreated to give him some space. He stared down at the floor, hands flexing into fists.

“Hey, it’s gonna be alright,” Gladio told him. “We’ll find him sooner or later. That kid’s tougher than he looks.”

I nodded in agreement as Ignis explained that we were almost to Tenebrae. We could wait for a little while there and rest, see if Prompto contacted us. Noctis seemed content with that plan and headed down the hall to the bedroom cars. I briefly considered going after him, knowing he had been sharing a room with Prompto, but decided against it. After the whole fiasco of being attacked on a _train,_ we all needed some time to destress and calm down.

Seeing Leviathan had helped curb my panic a little. The Astrals were awe-inspiring, even if I disliked the majority of them. At the very least, we had the gods on our side. But that didn’t mean they’d bring Prompto back. I desperately hoped they would, but it was mostly wishful thinking.

As we rolled into Tenebrae, beaten, forlorn, and a little lonely, I curled up in bed, dreaming of ice, snow, and wintry weather. And there was a familiar voice there in those white-capped mountains, singing me softly to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Or in this case, my enemy is actually my friend and my friend is my enemy. Not confusing at all, right~?


	4. The Frostbearer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a whisper on the wind... Who could it be?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you ready for EXPOSITION? And more DESPAIR?
> 
> lol no you’re not

Everyone was silent as we exited the train. I had briefly forgotten Prompto was gone and asked where he was before realizing. Noctis did not look much better after that exchange.

The world seemed bleaker than before now. I couldn’t find any semblance of joy anywhere. No one could think of anything uplifting to say other than that we’d find Prompto or eventually die trying. My heart hurt. What if Noct and I were already gone before that happened? We’d never get to say goodbye or apologize for threatening him.

Noctis and I sat down on the side of the train station. Gladio and Ignis waited for word about the train. Would they be able to repair it? Or would we have to find another way to Niflheim? I prayed the train would be fine.

“Do you think he’s okay…?” I asked a while, still thinking of and lamenting my last actions towards Prompto. Noctis sucked in a breath. “You don’t think he thinks we… hate him, do you?”

“I don’t want to think about it,” Noct snapped shortly.

“Sorry…”

_I just don’t want him to be all cold and alone out there… thinking we despise him for nothing…_

I couldn’t bear the thought of how he might feel. All the progress we’d made as friends only to hear from both Noct and me that everything that had happened was somehow _his_ fault. How heartbroken he must feel…! And it was our fault… Ours and Ardyn’s…

_If we…_ **_When_ ** _we see him again, he’s getting the biggest hug and apology. I’ll bake him a cake if I have to._

_“Ah-ah, ah-ah…”_

My head perked up, brows twisting in confusion. There was a song on the breeze as it swished by.

_“Ah-ah, ah-ah…”_

“Did you guys hear that?” I asked.

“Hear what?” Gladio asked, shifting towards me.

“That voice…”

The tune rang out gently yet distantly in my ears. It was familiar. I vaguely remembered Luna telling me about forging covenants with the gods and how it required singing to do it. Was she somehow nearby?

_If she was, she’d be with you._

_Then what is it?_

“You’re hearing voices now?” Gladio asked skeptically.

“You don’t hear it?” I asked, looking up. “It sounds like someone singing. Like—like the northwind voice from _Frozen 2.”_

“From what?”

“I understand you’re trying, _______, but these sorts of jokes aren’t always funny,” Ignis said. I gave him a weird look.

“I’m not trying to be…? You seriously don’t hear it?”

_“Ah-ah, ah-ah…”_

“There!” I got to my feet and looked left. “You didn’t hear that?”

“_______…”

“Just because Prompto’s gone doesn’t mean you have to take his place.”

“Will you guys shut it already?”

“I’m not _trying_ to take-”

“Well, look who’s here.” We stopped our budding argument and turned to see a familiar face.

“Aranea,” Noctis said, not _exactly_ sounding surprised. He spoke through gritted teeth as my guard went up. “Guess we’ve got _you_ to thank for this mess?”

“More to it than meets the eye,” she told him. “You wanna know who to thank? Come with me.”

She walked away as soon as she had come. Noctis let out a single, disbelieving laugh as he got up.

“Can’t wait to hear _this,”_ he said. We started to follow her through the station to a white sidewalk. Night was beginning to fall. Streetlights lit up our path, glowing warmly. As we caught up to our acquaintance, she took one look at Ignis and made a questioning sound.

“What did you do to your _eyes?”_ she asked him.

“Oh, uh…” Ignis searched for a quick answer. “Just a flesh wound.”

_‘Tis but a scratch!_

I _almost_ grinned. Almost.

“Can you see?” Aranea asked further.

“Thanks to the Oracle, yes. But I was blind for about a day.”

“Well, that’s good. Didn’t know she could heal the blind.”

“...Neither did we.”

We walked a bit farther, down a short set of stairs. I noted the carved railing. Then I looked out at the new territory with wide eyes. Tenebrae, it would seem, was made up of rock islands sprouting up from deep in the ground. I couldn’t see the bottom of the valley we were in. A waterfall roared nearby, crashing down into the dark depths. All around the islands were clumps of cyan-blue flowers—syllblossoms. Aranea led us to a bridge connecting two of the islands. I swallowed nervously.

Before we crossed it, though, Aranea turned around and addressed us again.

“Uh, wasn’t there one more of you guys?” she asked, eyes glancing over each of us. I looked down, guilt clutching my heart.

“Yeah,” Noctis said, voice wavering like he was holding onto his emotions by only a thread. “There _was.”_

“We… lost track of him,” Gladio tried to explain.

“Is he dead?” Aranea asked objectively. A shadow of tears rose to my eyes at the thought.

“I...I don’t know,” Noct said quietly. I shook my head.

“He _can’t_ be…” I told myself. “He can’t…”

“Then quit moping, keep hoping,” Aranea told us. She started walking toward the bridge. “And in the meantime, handle what’s at hand.”

_I’ll certainly try to…_

“Uh—” I paused at the bridge. “Um…”

“There a problem?” Aranea asked.

“There’s no handrails… Or anything…”

“Then stay in the middle. Come on.”

Nervousness crept into my heart as I slowly followed them, Ignis staying with me.

“Was this place built by the Dwarves of Moria…?” I asked myself.

_Please don’t let there be a Balrog nearby… I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that existed in a world like this..._

“So if it’s not _you_ we thank…” Gladio started as we continued crossing.

“Thank the _daemons!”_ Aranea said in a sarcastic advertising voice. “Pawns of the imperial army.”

“The army that _you_ fight for.”

_“Fought_ for. My men and I are in the search and rescue business now.”

Noctis and I made similar epiphany noises.

“Then…!” Hope lifted my heart. “Could you find Prompto…?”

“That depends,” she said. “Where’d you lose him?”

“Oh, um… Right before the tunnel to get here?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

We made it onto sweet, safe ground and my shoulders dropped with relief. There was a castle in the distance. I could only make out its silhouette in the setting sun, but it _looked_ like it was on _fire._ Or at least smoking. What had happened? Luna would be so sad to hear it.

“You mentioned being part of the relief effort,” Ignis began. “If we may, we have another favor to ask.”

“Ask away,” Aranea said easily.

“In light of what you’ve told us, we… _can’t_ allow the other passengers to continue on.”

“Sure. Leave ‘em to me, but… who’s gonna drive the train?”

“Now that you mention it, yeah…” Gladio thought it over. “You know anyone?”

“I do. In fact, I know two.”

She led us a short distance to a small imperial airship. Apprehension welled up in me and I fell a little further back. I was getting flashbacks to the ruins we’d explored with her, but the airship being there wasn’t helping my ever-increasing worry about what could happen. But instead of two MTs standing guarding around it, there were two men.

“Your new engineers,” Aranea introduced us. One wore white and the other, black. “Biggs and Wedge. No need to worry—they can take a lickin’.”

“Only if we ‘ave to,” the one in white said in what I _believe_ was a Cockney accent. “What’s all this about?”

“Driving a train. To Gralea.”

“That all?” He didn’t sound too amused.

“Well, who would you have me ask?”

“You got us there!”

“We’ll do it,” the second one in black said.

“Hey,” Gladio told them all sincerely, “we really appreciate you going out of your way.”

“Yeah,” Aranea brushed it off. “No sweat.”

“Thanks for the lift,” Noctis said to Biggs and Wedge.

“We’re happy to help,” Biggs, the one in white, said. “Can’t say the climate will be as cooperative, though. Y’know?”

“Right,” Wedge, the one in black, added. “Especially the gorge.”

“The place is freezin’! Makes sense, what with the ice goddess’ cold corpse lyin’ around.”

“The… _what?”_ I mumbled in horror.

“It’s a rather long ride, so I suggest you bundle up before we ship out. By the way, I bumped into a woman from the manor, used to serve House Fleuret. Must’ve gone off lookin’ for ya. Said she had something important to discuss.”

“With me?” Noctis voiced his surprise. “Guess I oughtta find her, then.”

As we set off to find the woman, Biggs told us he and Wedge would be waiting on board the train and to ‘give us a holler when you’re ready to shove off’. That thought disappeared from my mind when we began to cross another railless bridge so I thought I’d ask about whatever happened to Shiva.

“Hey, what did he mean about the ice goddess?” I asked hesitantly, trying not to look down as we made it halfway across.

“The empire slew her some years ago,” Ignis answered. “The area we are to pass through is the result of it.”

“Don’t think we’ll have to worry much about the cold,” Gladio chipped in. We made it onto solid ground. “I mean, this one practically breathes fire.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ll do what I can, but don’t rely on me _too_ much.”

_I do wonder, though… If I make the temperature go down when I’m scared, can I control it and make it go up?_

Speaking of flames, Noctis sucked up from magic fire juice from some glowy stones nearby. As he did so, I reached for my own fire magic and attempted to raise my body temperature. The effect was immediate: burning heat rose through me from my feet to my head. It warmed my fingers and reddened my cheeks. It was if I was standing _right_ in front of a bonfire. Even my hair frizzled, some strands sticking out.

As I figured that out, Noctis approached a woman getting on in years. She was wearing a dark gray and white dress and had her hair tied up in a bun. I summoned some ice magic to return me to a regular body heat and hurried after him.

“My word…” The woman took a few steps forward. “Is that you, Prince Noctis?”

“Uh, yeah,” Noctis said, a little awkward. “Have we…?”

_Strange how we keep meeting people Noctis both knows and doesn’t because he was too young—like Weskham._

“Oh, blessed be the stars!” the woman proclaimed. “Just look at what a fine young man you’ve grown into.”

_...He really has an effect on all the people around him, doesn’t he…?_

“I am Maria, a retainer in service to House Fleuret. I doubt you’ll remember me after these long years.”

“I, uh…” Noctis rubbed the back of his neck. “...Can’t say I do.”

“Don’t worry. Who I am is of little import—in light of what I wished to discuss. Lady Lunafreya risked _everything_ to spirit the Ring of the Lucii away from the Citadel. Did she deliver it to you?”

“Yeah,” Noctis nodded.

“Stars above!” She sounded so happy. “My fears have been assuaged! I’m sure Lord Ravus is also overjoyed at the thought!”

“Ravus, too?”

“He didn’t stop here on his way to Gralea?” I asked, curious and a little puzzled as to why he wouldn’t.

“He did, but I did not have much chance to speak with him,” Maria explained. “He has always been worried for Lady Lunafreya and her duties. His support, and yours, Prince Noctis, have been her saving graces these long weeks.”

“Oh… Right…”

“I understand you will go hence to the imperial capital.”

“Yeah,” Noctis replied.

“Lord Ravus has King Regis’ glaive in his safekeeping, and it was his wish to return it to you, my Prince. Though I imagine it will not be easy for you to find each other.”

Noctis stiffened a little at the mention of his dad. “...I’ll..get it from him somehow.”

“I pray it shall be so.” Maria bowed deeply.

We left the scene and headed back to the train. Noctis was quiet the whole way there.

“Um, Noct?” I asked him when we were near the station.

“Don’t.” was his response.

_Guess he doesn’t want to talk about it…_

I wondered briefly what he’d do with his dad’s sword. Would he use it? Or keep it on standby like he did with the Ring?

We were just about to climb the short stairs to the platform when a little blonde girl in a blue dress came running up to us.

_Ugh, can we please just go already?! So many distractions here!_

“Prince Noctis!” she greeted him.

“Yeah…?” Noctis asked, trying to sound interested and also wondering who this random child was.

“Prince Noctis, were you excited to marry Lady Lunafreya? Because she was _really_ excited to marry you! She looked so happy the day her dress arrived.”

I stifled a laugh. How sweet!

“She really loves you, Prince Noctis!”

“I…” Noctis’ cheeks went pink. He squatted down to her level. “Thank you.”

“Lady Lunefreya worried she was burdening you with the wedding. That’s not true, is it?”

“No, not at all.” Noctis was now smiling a little. It was a nice sight to see after losing Prompto, but for some reason my heart sank instead of rising. At the end of all this… Poor Luna would be losing him. It just… wasn’t fair.

-

“Don’t worry about the civilians,” Aranea came to see us off. “They’re in my good hands. ...Can’t say the same for you. Watch yourselves in the capital.”

“We will,” Ignis said.

“Thanks, Aranea,” Noctis said. “We’ll see you around.”

The train’s bell started to chime, signalling it was time to get going. Ignis and Gladio boarded the train. Noctis, however, stopped short, looking up.

“It’s… snowing,” he commented, surprised. I looked up with him. Tiny snowflakes were beginning to fall. I gave them a small smile which quickly vanished as a chilling breeze rushed past and a distant voice sang in the wind.

_“Ah-ah, ah-ah…”_

I jerked my head to the right. Where had it come from?

“You coming or what?”

“Y-yeah, coming!”

I followed Noctis onto the train.

An empty train was somewhat eerie. I kept close to Noct as we made our way to the dining car. A small dose of dread and foreboding anxiety blossomed inside me. Things were about to come to a head, just a few hours from now. And all I had to comfort me was the theme from _The Polar Express_ getting stuck in my head.

We had spread out in the dining car, Ignis and I sitting across from each other in a booth, Noctis in a chair at the window table next to the bar, and Gladio nearest the door. Not many words were exchanged and I had a feeling I wasn’t the only one getting nervous. The song persisted, though.

_It’s a magic carpet on a rail, never takes a rest—flying through the mountains and the snooow—!_

“Oi!” I was cut off by Biggs making an announcement through the train’s intercom. “Uh—attention, all passengers! We’re on our way to our final destination in the Imperial capital! Enjoy the ride! I’ll be in touch if anything comes up.”

“Look at all that snow,” Gladio said, gazing out the window. “No wonder it’s so cold in here.”

I raised a brow. It didn’t feel very cold to _me._

“We must be approaching the Glacian’s cadaver,” Ignis hypothesized.

“Won’t be a blessing if all we’ve got’s a body.”

“We do have _______, though. If we can’t find the Glacian herself, her blessing to _______ will have to be enough. Let's hope we pass through the gorge without incident.”

“It’s what’s after the gorge I’m worried about.”

_I guess that’s why I’m not freezing—I got Shiva’s blessing._

“Ignis, do you have any spare sheets of paper?” I asked, twisting my wrist round and round.

“I’m afraid not. There might be some behind the bar, though, or elsewhere aboard.”

I got up as Noctis did. He said he was going to look around for anything useful or interesting. I watched him go and found some paper menus under the bar. I took them back to the booth I was sitting at and began to stim with them.

About half an hour passed, maybe more, and my papers already looked like they’d gone through hell—their edges fringed and turned up and down, slightly crumpled. I continued my odd stim even though I’d already fringed every spare inch of edge I could find. It was just… really soothing.

Noctis came back to join us and not long after did the train come to a halt, the brakes screeching slightly. Gladio came walking into the room from going to find a bathroom.

“I wonder what it could be this time,” he said unhappily. I didn’t feel much better.

“Attentions, eh?” Biggs said over the intercom.

“What’s wrong?” Noctis asked, getting up to gather near the speaker by the door. Ignis followed him, and I reluctantly did the same.

“You may have noticed we’ve stopped. As for the cause… Outside, ya think?”

“We’ll take a look.”

“Oh. Well.”

“Hope it’s just a quick snow shoveling job,” Gladio muttered as we headed out.

“If it is, we can get it done in half the time,” I said, raising a hand covered in flames.

But alas, it never is that easy.

“It’s freezing,” Noctis said, shivering as we hopped out onto the snow and frost covered tracks. I felt the chill and relished in it, like a cold Autumn morning. My friends were probably getting more of an ‘evening after a Winter blizzard’, though.

“Want me to warm you up?” I offered.

“Please.”

I tapped into my magic and touched Noctis’ arm. His face instantly flushed pink and I turned to Gladio.

_“Woah,”_ he reacted, face now slightly red. I tapped Ignis’ arm. “Now _that’s_ what I call heat.”

“Like standing next to a furnace,” Ignis commented, cheeks also somewhat pink.

“Better keep moving to keep it all here.”

“The Glacian did this…”

“I...think I can _see_ her,” Noctis hissed. My gaze shifted upward and fear gripped my heart for a moment. It certainly was a jarring sight to see a giant, dead, well… _giant_ above us. It was her head, looking like an enormous ice sculpture of a woman. Her eyes were open and I prayed those eyes wouldn’t suddenly turn on _me._

“It’s a shame,” Gladio said softly. “She’s lying dead.”

“If it weren’t for _______, I’d think she really was,” Ignis said. “Perhaps her spirit form is all that’s left.”

“Damn, it’s _cold.”_

Daemons were sprouted up from the ground a distance away. I retouched everyone to warm them as they summoned their weapons.

“Let’s clean up out here,” Noctis decided, “and warm up in there.”

The fighting lasted far longer than we expected. We were hacking and slashing at every imp we could find, wraiths were everywhere, their light green flames dancing like little wisps in the night. I was wielding fire like my life depended on it, although I suppose it actually did. When they were all cleared out, I thought we were done.

I was proven wrong as a _massive,_ almost mechanical looking daemon descended upon us. It was dark and hulking. It had four legs, a tail with what looked like claws on it, and five or six front appendages that looked like razor-sharp blades and could—

“Watch out!”

—shoot… lasers…

I decided to call it a ‘deathclaw’.

The deathclaw could utilize its blade-like arms to send them shooting around the battlefield, making it easy to get sliced in half. I narrowly avoided that several times. Then it’d use those beams of light to cut an even path far down the tracks in a straight line, the pavement hissing from the heat.

My friends swung away at it, scrambling to avoid its talons and dark magic attacks. I was bent on cutting its health down with well-timed blasts of fire. Aiming was a bit difficult, though, when we were running to get out of the way of the giant laser beam it constructed with all six arms.

It shot its sword-arms out at Ignis and Gladio, it’s tail swinging to whack Noctis off balance. I sprinted forward to heal Ignis, wincing at the pain and hitting the deathclaw with a large lightning bolt. It turned on me, lifting its arms, their tips glowing red. When they rushed forward, bringing the lasers with them, I was running to get out of the way. Right as I crossed the last line of its attack, the searing heat boring into my shoulder. I collapsed with a muffled cry.

The left half of my body felt like it was on _fire._ I was crumpled in the snow on my knees, hand gripping my shoulder for dear life. My eyes watered at the sharp pain, not sure if I could get up.

_It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts—_

“Noctis…!” I mumbled. My eyes were wrenched shut as the freezing wind didn’t do much to help the pain go away. “Please, I don’t want to die—!”

“Hey, this isn’t the time to be making snow angels,” Noctis came rushing over with an orange-gold feather in his hand. “Take this.”

He activated his armiger as I used the phoenix down, the pain disappearing. I sighed while relief spread through my shoulder and slowly got to my feet. Noctis pulled all the stops with his armiger, sending the full force of it at the deathclaw as I mustered all of my remaining strength to conjure a fiery storm and lit the damn thing up like fireworks. A few more hits and hacks and it began to dissipate into black and purple wisps.

Gladio quickly headed back to the inside of the train to make sure it was alright as Noctis caught his breath, hands on his knees. The breeze was still blowing swiftly outside. Again, it carried a gentle voice in its wake.

_“Ah-ah, ah-ah…”_

I jumped a little and looked all around us. It sounded like there were _two_ this time. One coming from the train, and the other…—

“Hey, Noct!” Gladio came rushing from the train.

“What’s up?” Noct replied.

“You better get in here—something’s not right.”

“Yeah. Be there in a sec.”

—the other came from the _Glacian._

Ignis followed Gladio inside as I stood wondering what was going on. Then Noct headed for the train and I decided it wasn’t as important as getting warm and went with him. Right in the doorway, when we were about to climb aboard, my heart nearly stopped again.

Ardyn went purposefully strolling across the connecting corridor, not even paying us a glance.

Noctis sucked in an enraged breath. “No way.”

“Noct…” I muttered, now scared that the esteemed chancellor might be trying to pick off another of our friends.

_“You!”_ Noctis sprinted up the steps into the car. “Hold it!

“Noct! Wait!”

Ardyn was gone.

“That _son of a bitch.”_ Noctis took hissing, gasping breaths, trying to curb his anger.

“Noctis, please be careful—I know he took Prompto, but… what if he’s trying to do the same thing now?”

“I’m _not_ letting him get away with it…!”

Noct tore open the door leading to the rest of the train car. He slowed his steps, as did I, when he saw that the inside was somehow covered with an icy mist.

“What the hell…?”

He shook it off and went running down the aisle of booths.

“Hey, wait!” I called after him, hurrying to follow. We ran into the next car—and were immediately blasted back with a freezing gale.

The whole compartment was frosted over, a blizzard’s wind pushing us back. I could hardly see through all the snowflakes on my glasses. Noctis was pushing forward, his clothes started to freeze over. I made myself work to get closer to warm him with a quick spell. It was too cold even for me, the chill biting through my jacket and t-shirt to my skin. Trying to warm myself proved to have little effect; the wind blew the heat away.

My hand reached out for Noctis. He was hugging himself for any semblance of warmth. I couldn’t reach him. He was going to freeze to death if I didn’t do anything!

“N-Noct!” I tried to call out. My voice was carried away by the wind. “Noct, wait!”

“Stop!” Noctis called. There was a figure standing near the end of the room—Ardyn. “Stop, dammit!”

The wind only seemed to grow colder.

“Where is he? _Where’s Prompto?!”_

My heart clenched at the thought, my despair coming into play. Where _was_ Prompto?

“Oh, _there_ you are,” Ardyn said in his usual concerned-but-not-really-concerned voice. “I’m worried about your friends. They’ve fallen and they _can’t_ get up. Why not lend them a hand?”

Through the torrents of snow, I could see two big lumps in the growing snow drifts. Panic seized my heart.

_“Ignis…!”_ Tears appeared in my eyes. “Gladio…”

Ardyn didn’t seem much affected by the cold at all. He had a hand on the back of a booth and watched us, somewhat disinterested. Noctis stopped as we neared him. My feet shuffled forward carefully, hand reaching out again.

_Please…! Come on…! Almost… there…!_

“A coldness that can only be _hers…”_ Ardyn muttered, head turning away. Noctis fell to his knees, the freeze overtaking him. I pushed myself forward, now leaning down to him. My foot slipped on the frost and I stumbled, too, one knee on the floor.

_“Ah-ah, ah-ah…”_

My huddling frame straightened and stiffened. The voice… it sounded so _close…_

Another figure appeared within the wind. I could barely make out who it was. Ardyn’s head swiveled toward them.

“Ah…” He realized.

_Is that…?_ **_Gentiana?_ **

“The face you wore the day you d—”

Gentiana had raised a finger to her lips. Then she tapped Ardyn’s. He froze in an instant. My eyes widened. Was she here to save us?

“Let it now be done,” she said quietly, yet we could still hear her through the blizzard, “as promised to the Oracle.”

She spread her arms. A light shone from within her. When it was gone, I sucked in a gasp.

“Gentiana, it’s you…” Noctis was saying. “You’re the Glacian…”

“My dream…” I whispered. “The-The singing… You…”

_A soft voice spoke behind me and I whipped around to see- a blur. What was I seeing? An angel? She was - yes, she - blue with wings sprouting from her back. I couldn’t make out a face, and suddenly the air became cold._

Only now I _could_ make out a face. It was soft and beautiful, like an ice sculpture masterfully crafted. Her hair was styled up, making an arch over her back, icicles hanging from it. Her eyes regarded me kindly.

“Tales of the past and hopes for the future are manifest in the King of Kings,” she said. “He has found and cherished his lost soul, and the Frostbearer’s blessing shall be his.”

Noctis asked about tales of the past. Shiva began her tale.

“The Six have safeguarded this star since time immemorial, each of a different mind, but united by this common purpose. The gods’ protection extends to all creatures here below—even to the mortals created in their image. They are feeble creatures leading fragile lives and clinging to foolish fancies. The Frostbearer scorns these visions of ‘hope’ which melt like snow in the sun’s light.

“Yet the Pyreburner admires their strength of will. For their reverence, he grants unto them his flame, and the world of man flourishes. His benevolence warms the frozen heart of the Frostbearer. The mortals have earned her respect; he, her love and admiration. It is not long, however, before some among those men ascend to new heights of hubris. The people of Solheim spurn the gods who blessed them—the gods they once worshipped. The ungrateful mortals incur the wrath of the Pyreburner. He seeks to raze the very civilization his flames once helped build.

“But the Six are sworn to defend this star and all her inhabitants from harm—and, at times, from one another. The flames of war surge as Solheim fends off the Pyreburner’s fire. The gods’ pleas for peace fall on deaf ears, and the battle rages on.

“When the smoke clears, the world of man is in ruins, their star left scarred for time eternal. Wearied from war, the Six seek solace in slumber.

“This tale of our shared past is entrusted to the King and Queen of Kings… that they may see it to its conclusion.”

I recalled her story from the Cosmogony. The War of the Astrals. So that was where Solheim had gone: destroyed by the gods who swore to protect them, even in the same name of that protection. And the meteor—that could have wiped humanity in its _entirety_ out. It still could if we didn’t do anything about the Starscourge.

Noctis then asked about hopes for the future. My heart sank, knowing we wouldn’t be there to see it. Shiva’s tale began again.

“In the days that follow the war, while the Six are still asleep, the Pyreburner is sought by a man who draws him away from the Light.”

_Ardyn…_

“His peril is sensed by the Frostbearer; she rushes to his aid, only to be felled by the foreign hordes. Those masses are now one with the darkness, darkness that before long will swallow the Six and the star they protect. This star’s fate no longer rests in the hands of the gods. It sits on the shoulders of the Chosen.

“Deliver this world from darkness—and grant my love release.”

_But…_ **_how?_ ** _By our deaths? Is that really the only way?_

“I promise I will,” Noctis said sincerely. I looked at him almost in horror. Did he really not know? How could he not?

“There’s one more thing, though,” Noctis surprised me with another question. “You were... in _______’s dream… In-In two of them… Why?”

Shiva nodded deeply. “The Frostbearer’s task is to the Queen’s guidance. So it was done, and so shall it still be done.”

“Th-thank you…” I said reverently. My mind thought thoughts of home. The water in my eyes returned. “Really, thank you—but… I...”

“May the Queen weep not. Her people have ascended; they lay in wait for her at the End.”

A handful of tears spilled down my cheeks. My throat tightened and my words sounded choked. “But I-I... I _miss them._ I m-miss _h-_ _home.”_

Shiva floated forward slowly, passing Noctis to bend down to me. Gently, she rested a chilled hand on my cheek.

“Despair not, dear one. They are at peace.”

Sniffling and trying to choke back the ever-falling tears, I curled into myself as they came forward in full force.

“A gift for the Queen.”

I sniffed and looked up. Shiva’s hand came away from my face and the other held up a strange object. It looked like a chunk of a ram’s horn.

“When the world’s light has gone, and despair seizes her heart once more, may the Queen find solace in the warmth of the Pyreburner’s hearth.”

Shivering, another tear fell and I reached out to take the piece of horn. “You’re… _giving_ this to me…?”

She placed it in my hand and curled my finger over it.

“The gods’ last hope lies in the hands of the Queen of Queens.”


	5. Apocalypsis Noctis - Pars Una

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With a piece of Ifrit in hand, we arrive in Gralea with a bang.

_“As her words go with him, so shall my blessing.”_

As Noctis received Shiva’s blessing, I held the horn shard in my hand. It was _warm,_ like I was holding one of my flames. It thawed the frost and snow clumped on my clothes, filling me with warmth like from a fireplace. This… This was a piece of the Pyreburner _himself,_ wasn’t it? Like I had somehow been given _his_ blessing, even if he was dead.

“O King and Queen of Kings,” Shiva said, holding a trident-shaped light out to Noctis, “restore the light unto this world.”

“...Thanks.” “Thank you…” Noctis and I spoke together.

As the trident of light disappeared into Noctis’ hand, Shiva disappeared. Noct curled further toward the ground, holding himself up.

“...Luna…” he hissed. “We’ll be together again someday. I promise.”

He stood as I stayed kneeling. My eyes were trained on the horn piece.

This was the life I was meant to live. Inherent to a power I could never fully comprehend. Heir to a world that I’d never lived in. Forced to leave behind everything for the sake of a people I didn’t even know. Their whole history rested in my hands, the bane of their existence reduced to a simple ram’s horn. A new bane had risen and _I_ was to defeat it. _Me._ Me who had hardly any knowledge of combat and very little of the world I was supposed to protect. If it was Earth, then I’d understand. If it was Earth, I’d go willingly. But… Eos was _not_ Earth.

Sniff.

My eyes clouded up suddenly.

Sniff.

_Why can’t I just go home?_

“_______…?”

_I’m not cut out for this…! I can’t… I can’t do it._

With a tightening feeling rising in my throat, the tears quickly once more.

_I just want to go home!_

I continued staring at the ram’s horn, feeling its warmth burn and increase. My hand was shaking as I held it. I held a piece of the person who’d _started_ all of this…! It had been given to me as a _gift._ But as I stared at it, all it did was serve as a reminder of what I’d _lost_ and _why._

The horn fell to the ground.

Noctis hurried to my side, still shivering slightly in the freezing train car. He moved the horn piece aside, opting to try and comfort me with a hand on my shoulder as I cried softly.

 _“I just want to go home…!”_ I managed to choke out with a deep breath.

“I… I _know,”_ Noctis said, struggling to find words, himself. “I know I promised you I’d… …I’m sorry, _______.”

He said nothing else for a moment as I let tears continue to fall. The snowstorm had faded and left us with empty, tense silence.

“We’ll make you a new one. Once this is all over… we’ll do it. Together.”

-

“What’re _you_ lookin’ at?”

There was a shattering sound. Millions of little pieces of ice sprinkled across the floor as Noctis used a lance to destroy the frozen Ardyn. I wiped the tears from my eyes and grabbed the ram horn piece, banishing it to the inventory system.

“Hey.” Noctis hurried to where Ignis and Gladio were still lying on the cold and frosted floor. “Wake up.”

Noctis was hissing and shivering as they got up. I worried a bit before remembering I could do something about it.

“The hell happened…?” Gladio mumbled as he got to his feet.

_If I have Ifrit’s ‘blessing’, then maybe I could thaw the whole room…_

“Noct!” Ignis jumped in Worried Mother Mode. “_______!”

“Yeah,” Noct said. I conjured a small, orange flame. “We saw the Glacian.”

I let it dance over my hand and onto the other, happy it wasn’t going out of control.

“It’s okay, she’s gone now. You guys check on our drivers.”

“Got it.” Gladio nodded. He turned to me. “Care to warm us up first?”

I gave my flame a small smile. As if instinct, I closed my eyes and positioned my hands with a flat palm pointing up over a closed fist; the same greeting the people of the Fire Nation from _Avatar: The Last Airbender_ gave each other. Warm rose up and spread through my entire body. The flame burst over the room in a horizontal circle. The snow and frost began to melt. My friends’ chilled skin warmed. When I opened my eyes, Ignis and Gladio were in awe. Noctis looked proud.

“Where’dja learn _that?”_ Gladio asked.

“Shiva gave her a piece of Ifrit,” Noctis answered. “I think she’s good to go for now. Where magic’s concerned, anyway.”

“Huh. Convenient she gets that as we’re getting to the coldest part of the journey.”

“Truly marvelous,” Ignis said, pushing his glasses up.

My tear-stained smile turned into a sheepish one.

“Let’s find the drivers.”

Ignis and Gladio went one way. Noctis and I took the other. I wasn’t sure exactly where we were going, but I felt it best to stay with him for now. We went through one car without any incident. No other areas were covered with snow, so that was a plus. We entered into the second without much expectation. I was about to ask Noct what we were doing when I felt a presence shift behind me.

We turned to see _Ardyn_ standing there in the aisle, as much alive as we were. Noctis pulled me next to him. I stayed close as fear gripped my heart. He had just been _frozen_ and Noctis had _broken_ him.

“I feel I’ve earned the right to call you Noct,” Ardyn said, somewhat lightly. He took a step towards us. We took some back. I listened to my brain saying there was little point in attacking him at this rate. “For a moment I felt death’s chill wind, such is the might of the gods.”

He took a couple more steps and swayed on his feet for emphasis.

“But then I remembered I’m _immortal._ Such is my blessing… and curse.”

 _He’s…_ **_what?_ **

He turned away, hand going to his pocket and slipping something out of.

“Your attack hurt me, nevertheless…” He slowly looked up at us, the concealed rage in his eyes peeking out. “My _feelings,_ at least.”

We braced ourselves for what he might do, but he kept talking.

“And after all the memories we’ve shared.”

He held up a familiar weapon. My heart jumped.

“Remember this—? Ah— I should have asked if you remember _him.”_

_Prompto…!_

I couldn’t even muster the strength to feel angry, though. Everything just felt empty, sad, and hopeless.

“Truly a blast from the last…” Ardyn walked closer to us, “...nay?”

He gave Noctis’ shoulder a nudge with the hand holding the gun. Noctis hissed and made a grab for the gun, desperation in his eyes. Ardyn immediately pulled it away.

“Ah, ah, ah—! You mustn’t take what’s not yours.”

He held Prompto’s gun up in the air as he walked a few steps away.

 _Funny for_ **_you_ ** _to say…_

“Where is he?” Noctis demanded.

“‘He’...?” Ardyn stopped and turned towards us again. He chuckled and pointed vaguely down the aisle. “The little _gunman’s_ a short shot away.”

_“Where?”_

“Where else but Gralea, the seat of the empire? I’m sure he’ll be _delighted_ to see you.”

My heart and gaze sunk as I thought of my last moments with Prompto, thinking he was the man standing before us.

“And you might even find your _Crystal.”_

My eyes glanced up from the floor. That’s right… Gralea was where the Crystal was.

Ardyn began to walk toward us. Noctis pulled me to the side with him.

“With all these daemons about,” he said as he passed us by, “you could certainly _use it.”_

He paused when he was a couple steps away. Something was in his hand.

“Off you go then. I wouldn’t want to keep you from your _friend.”_

He lifted his right hand and clicked the thing it held, a button of sorts. Then he laughed quietly to himself as he walked away. As Noctis watched him go, hands clenched tightly into fists, I placed a hand on his shoulder as he done for me.

_‘It’s not worth going after him now.’_

He took a deep breath and let himself relax.

“Let’s… go find Ignis,” he said after a long moment. I nodded in agreement. We went back the way we had come.

A while later, the four of us were together in the dining car again. My head was resting on my arms on the table. Noctis sat beside me. Ignis was across from us and Gladio leaned against the bar. My eyes were closed and I was close to falling asleep. Sleep… That would be wonderful…

“We should be drawing close to Gralea.” Ignis broke through my beautiful almost-unconsciousness.

“Yeah,” was Noctis’ response. We had told them a little of what had happened with Ardyn, but seeing as we weren’t even to the city yet, there was nothing we could do.

“I can’t imagine what it’ll be like,” Gladio said.

“Swarming with daemons, but you knew that.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Once we arrive, we’ll make for the Keep,” Ignis planned. I opened my eyes a little. This was important.

“The Keep?” Noctis echoed.

“Zegnautus. An imperial megafortress said to be impregnable.”

_And that makes this train our Trojan horse, I guess._

Noctis shifted next to me. “With Prompto and the Crystal inside it.”

My heart clenched with worry. Poor Prompto must feel all alone.

“What goes in, must come out,” Gladio said confidently. “So, are we buying this story that the Crystal can purge daemons?”

“The proof is in the purging,” Ignis said, “but it does stand to reason. We’ve observed that as the nights have grown longer, the daemon hordes have grown stronger.”

“The nights?” I mumbled, slightly confused.

“Luna’s strength is waning,” Noctis said quietly. “There’s only so much she can do against eternal darkness.”

I hummed thoughtfully.

“The daemons are in fact averse to the Crystal’s Light,” Ignis continued, “it could save not only Lucis, but the world.”

Ignis glanced at me.

_With my help, of course…_

“We’ll find out once we take it back,” Noctis determined.

High pitched ringing noises pierced my eardrums as the train came to yet another sudden stop. I covered my ears as Gladio inquired as to what the hell was going on.

“What is it?” I mumbled once the ringing had stopped. I twisted my wrist, feeling the bones pop. The slightest sense of ease helped calm my ever rising apprehension.

“My guess?” Gladio answered. “Something to sidetrack us.”

“I hate our sidequests.”

We all got to our feet. Noctis led the way through the gangway connection between the train cars. I was last, sleepy and trying to regain any alertness. The drivers were silent over the intercom.

Halfway across a sleeping car, the train lurched and the windows cracked, their splitting making a lace pattern. We stumbled to our knees, barely able to keep our feet. My heart was beginning to beat faster. This was the _third_ time today! When would it end?

“What now?” Gladio growled.

“City’s trying to keep us out,” Biggs’ voice came through the intercom. “With the daemons.”

Imps jumped onto the nearly shattered windows. My friends backed up a little, surprised to see them so soon.

“Gotta run! Don’t worry about us.”

An imp fell through the window, glass pieces all over the floor.

“Let’s get to work,” Noctis said bravely, lifting a hand. Nothing happened. My heart fluttered with nervousness as the imp struggled to its feet. “Uh…”

“What’s wrong?” Gladio asked, also getting worried.

“The weapons… they’re stuck…!”

“Get back!”

The imp jumped forward at Noct. Gladio rushed forward and gave it a short but powerful kick. It slid a few feet away.

“_______,” Ignis got my attention. I nodded. I lifted a hand, intending to freeze the imps now climbing through the breaking windows. When I thrust my hand forward, however, nothing happened.

My heart jolted. I tried again.

“Noct…” I whimpered shakily.

“Run!” Ignis ordered.

We took off back toward the dining car, Gladio pulling me along the way. My heart was going nuts, fluttering, buzzing, almost freezing with fear. I couldn’t defend myself. How the hell was I supposed to survive a _daemon invasion_ with no powers?! What had happened?!

We skirted past some imps in the gangway connection and ran into the dining car.

“Only a matter of time before we run out of room to run!” Ignis assessed. I gasped and tried to suck the breath back in, adrenaline hitching up a notch.

“What do we _do?”_ I cried, picking up my pace to keep up with Noct.

“We trade the train for the Regalia.”

“You brought it _with you?!”_

“You think we _wouldn’t?”_ Noctis shouted back.

“C’mon!” Gladio got us on track. We broke through to the next car, a sleeping car with a couple imps. One scratched at my leg and Ignis kicked it away.

“Noct!” he called. “The freight car!”

“Keep moving!” Noctis called back.

We sprinted through the train, kicking up old dust. My heart was pounding, brain unable to make sense of what the hell was going on. Where had our magic gone? Would it come back? Had it been taken away? _Why us?_

My feet stumbled a little over nothing. My heart cried out with sweet panic for me to scramble onward. It felt like at any moment, my terribly shaking body would just give out and break down. Somehow, I managed to keep going, trailing Noctis so closely, like he could somehow protect me even without weapons or magic flasks.

We finally burst into a freight car, though it was empty nearest the rest of the train. Noctis continued leading us to the end of it. My whole being sang with relief as I spotted the Regalia sitting at the back. Noctis jumped into the driver’s seat, Gladio getting into the backseat. Ignis ran ahead to the passenger seat, telling me to get in the one behind Noct.

“Strap in,” Noctis told us. I worriedly checked behind us for any daemons.

“Hey, you’re gonna be fine,” Gladio assured me. I nodded and did as Noctis said to. Soon we were off, the end of the car already open for us.

We hit the road, the car bumping a little bit. I was on high alert, attuned to every sound and movement. The wind whipped last as Noctis stepped further on the gas pedal.

“Threat upgraded,” a female voice said over the area’s speakers. “Activating level four security measures. Sealing off gates.”

“Put the pedal to the metal!” Gladio said, stress bleeding through his words.

“That’s the idea,” Noctis said back.

“Don’t crash!”

“Thanks for the tip.”

We sped along the side of the tracks, air whipping wildly all around us. I was feeling a bit better now that we were in the car, but that clearly didn’t mean much if we didn’t make it through the gate. Noctis was doing his best to follow the tracks, keeping to the middle between and the wall.

“Don’t slow down or they’ll catch us up!” Gladio continued to hurriedly backseat drive.

“Please stop yelling,” I said nervously, hugging myself.

“Going fast as I can,” Noctis called back. “Hang on!”

He fully stepped on the gas and I nearly got whiplash. When I looked behind us, I could see daemons morphing up from the ground. The shadowy darkness oozing from them sent shivers down my spine. Some were giving chase.

The car rushed past a broken down train car. Trash was littered along the tracks, some of it burning. I briefly wondered what had happened. The longer we stayed on the road, though, the more I was calming down. We had a way of transportation that would hopefully get us to some semblance of safety. We didn’t have to run anymore—yet. I counted that as a win.

Or at least I did until they started firing at us with flaming ammunition.

The Regalia, now with its top up, rushed past so many broken down train cars, Noctis dodging them and the other debris as best he could. Out of the sky came balls of fire, crashing into the road and narrowly missing us. I lowered my head so I wouldn’t get hit.

“One clean hit and it’s over,” Gladio said.

“‘Thank you for the commentary’, Gladio,” I quoted somewhat bitterly, “‘it’s not at all _distracting’.”_

“It’ll take a lot more than that to stop His Majesty’s trusty steed,” Ignis declared.

The ground burst into fire and smoke to our immediate right. Noctis swerved around it, causing the Regalia to swing into the wall. It bounced against it, causing us to jerk to the right. I whimpered, my hands desperately clinging to my seatbelt.

 _At least Prompto doesn’t have to endure this,_ I thought as we swerved again, missing a pile of junk. My heart was going haywire again. I’d never been in an accident before and I _really_ hoped that wouldn’t change that day—er, night.

“Dodging one thing to run into another,” Gladio said helpfully.

“The Regalia can take the punishment,” Ignis said. “Just focus on your driving.”

“You can do it, girl, you can get through this!” Noctis hissed. With his foot firmly on the gas, he sped us forward. The path curved right. The Regalia carried us past more flaming debris. Then I was flattened against the side of the car as Noct swerved sharply to dodge the fireballs.

My panicking was beginning to spike up again. I gripped my seatbelt tightly as we neared the gate. The city’s firing at us increased.

“It’s closing!” Gladio shouted. “Floor it!”

I braced myself for another wave of intensity as explosions lit up the right side of the road. Heat blared in our faces.

“C’mon, old girl…” Noctis encouraged the car. “...Dad.”

As we were in the home stretch, one explosion hit us almost dead on, bursting around the car. I wrenched my eyes shut as the top shielded us from the flames. Noctis drove us out and we slid through the gate as it finally came to a close. The Regalia came to a stop, the engine fried and the windows cracked.

“That’s all she’s got,” Gladio said after a moment. I was breathing heavily from fear.

“It’ll do,” Noctis said quietly. As I recovered from that whole ordeal, a pang of sympathy hit me. This car was his dad’s; and it had protected us. After that last act, its days were done.

The four of us slowly got out of the car. The engine was smoking, poor thing. As Noctis took a moment to honor the last gift his father had given him, I looked around.

We were in a trainyard on the edge of a large city. It had started to rain while we were racing here. I pulled my hood up and gazed at the giant buildings in the distance. It almost reminded me of New York with its tall skyscrapers lit up with lights. We might be able to blend in there for a bit until we found the keep we were going to. It’d be nice to be another city, too. Safer, less daemons. More light.

“Dad…” I turned back to Noctis, who was gazing at the Regalia sadly. “Thanks for everything.”

I reached for his hand. He shook me off. So I just patted his shoulder instead.

“Are we _seriously_ marching into the capital empty handed?” Gladio asked a minute later as we gathered to make a plan.

“And with no assurances the Crystal can beat back the daemon hordes,” Ignis voiced.

“Guess we’ll find out the hard way. No turning back now, right?”

“I think we’re supposed to go there,” I spoke up. I’d been relatively quiet until now. They all looked at me. This time I reached for Noct’s arm without caring for his reaction. “We have to.”

“You’re _sure.”_

I nodded. “And Prompto’s there.”

“...Right. But it could be a trap.”

“Then it’s worth it to get him back,” Noctis agreed with me.

The trainyard was in disarray. All the trains looked empty, broken, down, out of commission, or all of the above. One of them had fallen down from a higher road on top of one of another, barely supported by it and the railing near the edge of the yard.

“This thing could come down at any time,” Gladio observed.

“Let’s be quick,” Ignis said.

“C’mon, this way,” Noctis led us over to it. As we neared it, it budged, its weight too much for the things below to hold it. I hesitated. “_______, you go first.”

“Me…?” I swallowed as the train jerked again.

“Hurry,” Gladio said impatiently.

“Okay, okay…!” I paused. And then I forced myself to spring under the damn thing, heart pounding as it almost gave way. There was a creaking sound as Noctis followed me through. Then… the whole thing came crashing down. I let out a helpless breath. Seriously? Now we get _separated?_

To make matters worse, some imps began to sprout up from the ground.

 _This is the_ **_worst_ ** _day ever._

Noctis and I scrambled up some debris and into a dead train.

 _“Look at you,”_ Ardyn’s voice played over the area. _“All by yourselves.”_

I felt like I was about to start crying again. Three daemon attacks in one day, I meet a god who reminds me of everything I’ve lost, I lose my magic, and now _Ardyn_ has come back to taunt me about it all. It was getting to be too much.

 _“You,”_ Noctis growled as we traveled through the dark train’s aisles. “You know, for an imperial chancellor, you are one _sick_ son of a bitch…”

We exited the train through a gangway connection and came to a small part of the lot. At the end of it, some stairs led into a nearby building. We hurried up them as more imps chased us. But surprise, surprise, _more_ popped up as we climbed.

“Daemons… The _hell_ do you want? Leave us _alone!”_

We came into a warehouse type room, panting from practically sprinting up the stairs to get away from the monsters. Noctis knelt down to get a rest. As I looked around, he pulled something from his pocket.

“Which way should we go?” I asked. “Back out…? Noct…?

He was breathing heavily again, though more pained this time, almost like he was fighting back tears. I stepped closer and saw his family’s ring in his hand. He was trying to put it on, but was clearly holding himself back. I stayed quiet and let him go through the motions.

Slowly, he managed to put on the ring with a loud shout, the weight of his responsibilities crashing down on him. I knelt next to him, hand on his shoulder again. I gripped him tightly, hoping he wouldn’t burst into magic flames like Ignis had. But…

Noctis raised his right hand, Ring of the Lucii on his middle finger. He flexed his fingers. Nothing happened. He stood and I followed. He continued to observe the ring as its black stone began to glow light blue.

“Noct…?” I asked gently. Was he alright? He wouldn’t go blind, right?

 _I suppose nothing_ **_would_ ** _happen given it's a family heirloom and he’s_ **_supposed_ ** _to have it…_

Noctis sighed and his arm fell to his side.

“The time has come.”

I nodded, understanding what he meant.

“Come on. Let’s try this way.”

My feet carried me alongside the King. His resolve was humbling, calming. We would walk through the darkness together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry these chapters are so spaced apart. I hope they’re still good though!


	6. Apocalypsis Noctis - Parts Duae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _______ and Noctis continue through the Keep...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for any typos; I rarely proofread these beforehand. Should probably fix that, lol

“Alright. Stay back and let me handle this.”

I did as told. An imp had crawled into the broken down warehouse we were in. Given that the Ring was his family’s heirloom, I assumed Noctis knew how to use it. He lifted his right hand, palm out. Wisps of light, light blue and deep magenta, streamed from the daemon as its health declined and it perished. It vanished into the floor, never to be seen again.

“Woah…” I watched with awe. “That’s so _cool._ And we had that the whole time on the train?”

“...Yeah, we did.”

“Oh—sorry…”

_Big burden on him, not easy to handle. Right._

“Come on.”

The warehouse was dark, only lit by emergency lights. Pipes were everywhere, a valve to our right. Bits of boxes and other debris was strewn all over the floor. Someone hadn’t cleaned this place in a while. I stepped over some scattered bricks as we walked into a more open walkway.

“Hey, look.”

Noctis was staring at the base of a long, dark elevator shaft, almost like a small skyscraper. Our eyes traveled up and up and up…

“How did I not see that before…?” I worried. Above us was an _enormous_ , diamond-shaped fortress, lit up with lights—the power was still on. It nearly blocked out the sky if you were standing directly under it, which we were.

“Looks like it’s connected below. Might be our ticket to the top.”

I shivered a little. “Is it too late to say I’m scared?”

The tugging began in our chests and I looked at him with wide eyes.

“It’s okay,” he assured me. “I am, too.”

“That’s… not very reassuring.”

On the other end of our platform was an imp and some railing. Some boxes were stacked against the left wall. Noctis took care of the imp and then hissed in frustration.

“What're we s’posed to _do?”_ he asked. “How do we…? Oh.”

There was a power box next to the boxes. Noctis pulled its lever down and the light on it turned green.

“Let’s go.”

Unsure of what we were doing, I elected to follow him and let him do whatever he was doing. We found the door the lever had opened and found ourselves in a narrow hallway.

“Noct…?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you… think that…?”

“This is definitely a trap.”

“And we’re going to keep going?”

“Yeah. For the Crystal.”

I sighed. My nerves were slowly rising, being in such a dark and twisted place. With no Gladio or Ignis. With Ardyn watching our every move. Was the Crystal really worth it? I had no idea seeing as Earth was lacking in magical ones.

The hallway opened into another cluttered room. This one had lots of boxes and a small table to our right. The floor was filthy, covered in dirt and dust. The fence to our left blocked off another hallway. At the end of the room was another power console with a lever. Some machinery lied to its right, larged pipes going in and out of the room, controlled by a single wheel-valve. Noctis pulled the power lever and its light turned green. Back down the hallway we went.

The next door was in the hallway. We walked through and continued our exploration through to another open storage room. Another door later and we climbed a staircase to a control panel. Noctis knew what to do and I let him do it. The lights on the screen above us turned green.

“That’s the way to the elevator taken care of,” he said.

“Is _that_ what we were doing…”

“What did you think? Reconnaissance?”

“I don’t know how this place works, man.”

We were ambushed by a couple imps on our way down. Noctis and the Ring took care of them easily, Ring glowing magenta. Together we traveled through the warehouse. A few times we got turned around since everything looked the same, but eventually we found a room with some chairs and bunk beds.

“Wanna rest for a bit?” Noctis asked.

I nodded, going to sit on one of the beds. He sat next to me.

“There’s… a thing… about the Ring,” he started. My head turned toward a little to show I was listening. “It’s… Well, I know you never met my dad, but… well…”

“Take your time.”

“There was this great wall he conjured around the city using the ring. It’s how he protected us for so long, but… Using the Ring… chips away at your health. He had… scars from it.”

Oh. No wonder he was so scared to use it. This thing could _kill_ him. It almost killed his _dad._ What a weight to further carry, I thought. It’s…

_I should tell him._

“Noct—”

“C’mon, let’s go. We’re wasting time.”

He got up and went to the door. I let out a breath.

“Noctis… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I don’t… I don’t know why I told you that.”

“It’s okay to be scared,” I said, standing. “I can’t do much, but you know you’re not alone, right?”

He was quiet for a second. “Yeah, I know.

The tugging started again.

“Stay close, okay? I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

-

After defeating another lone imp, we found ourselves further up. These warehouses had balcony-like areas, overlooking the city. Bright lights glared out from all the tall buildings in the distance. I stopped for a second, almost feeling calmed by the sight of something familiar.

“It’s just… another city,” I said quietly.

“Not a good one,” Noctis muttered.

“To think there are so many ordinary people down there… They have no idea what’s going on.”

“All living under this tower.”

Something dark with wings glided past the buildings, closer to us than then. I shivered, feeling helpless.

“Come on.”

We turned around and headed down yet another hallway.

“Gotta wonder though: it’s dead quiet—where did everybody go?”

“Home, maybe? It’s dark, so…”

“Can’t be _that_ late yet. Early nights, remember?”

“Right…”

The door we came upon slid shut behind us. We were in a small room with tables and boxes. In front of us was the elevator, I assumed.

“Not these bastards again…” Noctis hissed as the elevator opened to reveal a few imps. “Stay back.”

I stood near the door as Noctis revealed a new move with the Ring. Bright, light blue and magenta mist sprang up from the ground flickering as fire as he touched the imps, warping to them, and dispelled them. I watched with awe, wondering how he knew what to do. Was there training with the Ring to be done? Had his dad told him? Was it instinctual?

“Let’s go.”

We stepped into the elevator. Noct pressed a button and up we went.

“This whole city gives me the chills.”

“Noct? Can I ask you about the Ring?”

“What about it?”

“How does it work? Like—do you just… know what to do?”

“Kinda, yeah. It’s like… like I’ve always known how to do it.”

“Weird.”

“Yeah… It still takes some getting used to.”

We were quiet the rest of the way up. My heart, which had been in a flurry of anxious fluttering, started to calm down now that we had another moment to rest a little. But when the elevator opened…

“Oh, I don’t like that…” I whispered as the door slid open.

It was another hallway. This one was dimly lit and had crates stacked to the side. It gave me an industrial feeling with its tall ceiling and supportive beams. Dread crawled onto my back. This was not a place we should be.

“Too quiet for comfort,” Noctis agreed.

_“How_ does _it feel to be powerless?”_

I jumped, heartbeat spiking as Ardyn taunted us over the building’s speaker system. Noctis gritted his teeth and continued through the hallway, picking up some hi-potions as he went along. I followed close behind.

_“Can’t help your friends if you can’t help yourself.”_

_Ignis and Gladio… Are they okay?!_

“Gotta hurry and find them…!” Noctis sounded worried. “Wherever they are.”

We got a bit turned around in the hallway’s branching arms. Everything looked the same, plain walls, tiled floor, boxes everywhere…

_“Can’t you simply taste the air of foreboding?”_

Ardyn sounded _pleased._ Resentment was slowly building itself a monument inside me as he laughed to himself over the speakers.

_The_ **_hell_ ** _is trying to do?! What does he want?!_

We turned a corner and another one. The dust that was all around us nearly made me sneeze. But finally, after another minute or two, something happened.

The hallway came to a branch, going left and right. The right was mostly wall. The left was covered in pipes and support. A _person,_ though, _Ardyn,_ was strolling right past the corridor as an MT unit lifted to its feet. A light near some pipes cast red light onto it.

“These don’t look like typical MTs…” Noctis muttered, using the Ring to dispose of it. “Be careful; they’re probably everywhere. Stay close.”

We overlooked a perfectly nice door in favor of exploration. A nice sentiment, but not a good one, I think, for survival.

_“Must be tiring,”_ Ardyn continued his taunting, _“having to run all the time.”_

“Can he _shut it?”_ I hissed, mostly to myself.

“Shh…!”

_“That magic is a_ **_royal_ ** _disappointment. Wouldn’t you say, _______?”_

There was a light sparkling feeling in my fingertips as anger rose in me. It wasn’t enough for anything to happen, though. That anger was soon replaced by disappointment and more helplessness.

We picked up some healing items in a storeroom and continued through it to more corridors. I thought we got turned around again when we ended up in a similar area to the one we came in.

Something grabbed Noctis and had him pulled against the bars to a room. My heart _jolted_ and I helped pull him free. The MT in the caged room had red eyes and made an inhuman noise as it collapsed to the ground.

“Are you okay?!” I asked, out of breath from such a sudden scare.

“Yeah…” Noctis swallowed. “Something different about them, something off…”

“I don’t like it here…”

“Yeah, neither do I.”

Thankfully, at the end of the hallway was a break room like the one we had found before. This one had more bunk beds and lots of lockers. We stopped to rest and back out we went.

There isn’t much to say about the next short while. We wandered through the hallways, picking up spare supplies and getting lost on occasion. Noctis killed the demented MTs and my heart sank lower and lower at not being able to help. Whatever Ardyn had done, he had executed it _perfectly._ Whether or not I was supposed to be with Noct didn't matter—I couldn’t do _shit_ but stand there and support him.

The further we went on, the more comfortable I got with the building. Not comfortable enough to feel _safe,_ per se, but enough that I could feel like we’d be fine if we could just get through it.

That feeling vanished as we walked through a door labeled A-01 and came upon another tower-like structure in a vast room with four bridges suspended over nothing. I couldn’t even see the ceiling as I looked up. Ardyn’s laugh echoed over the speaker and I felt the slightest hint of rage.

_“It’s all coming along swimmingly, isn’t it?”_

“We’d know better if you’d tell us what you _meant,”_ I muttered. We crossed the first bridge and opened the garage-like door to reveal… …a circle support structure. The other three sides had more heavy-duty doors leading elsewhere.

“Can’t afford to get spun around,” Noctis said to himself. “Let’s go… left?”

I shrugged. “We go left and know we came from the right.”

“Good enough for me.”

Left we went. More hallway. More _boxes._ I was getting tired of all the _boxes._ Why were they there? What purpose did they serve? Why were they not in a warehouse and just stacked among the halls?

We turned a round corner, seeing more boxes and—

_“Hey!_ Prompto!” “Prompto!”

Shocked with adrenaline and worry, we took off after him.

“Wait!”

“Prompto, we’re sorry—! _Noct!”_

Something grabbed my leg and started pulling me down. My heart went haywire with panic as Noctis turned back to pull me free of the MT’s grip. He stomped it down and I caught my breath. I hadn’t even noticed the downed soldiers. They were lying presumably dead on the floor.

“You okay?” Noctis asked. I inhaled deeply and nodded. “Let’s go.”

We continued down the hallway, rounding another corner. We found ourselves on some narrow, railed-in platforms. More boxes and a ladder made for bland decorations in the dimness of the building.

“Where did he go?” I asked quietly. The dread on my back increased and my worry caused my chest to hurt a little.

“No idea—how did anyone get around in this place?”

We treaded the hallways carefully, skirting around any fallen MTs. Past some pipes, we found a room with someone’s belongings in it.

“What have we here?” Noctis looked through them. “‘Clearance level’? Nice.”

The stress of the situation caused me to panic slightly.

_I can’t be in SCP Containment Breach._ **_Please_ ** _don’t be in SCP Containment Breach. Ardyn, you sick son of a bitch, I will_ **_not_ ** _tolerate being put in a_ **_horror game._ **

“Noct…”

“What?” He looked up at me. “What is it?”

I noticed I was shaking a little. “I’m _scared.”_

“I know. We just… gotta make it through here, alright? Stay close and keep a lookout.”

The Keep made weird noises as Noctis used the clearance card on a device in the corner. It creaked eerily around us, the steam hissing through the pipes. The implication of the person’s belongings being _right_ where the card would have been used was… not boding well for _us._ Where did they go? Where was their _body?_ What were they trying to _do?_

“Security clearance raised to level two,” an automated, female voice said over the speaker. “Access to level two zones authorized. Generating duplicate…”

Noctis gave me the second one he printed and we were off back down the hall. “In case we get separated.”

“You-You don’t think… we _will,_ do you…?”

“Gotta prepare for everything.”

“That’s not very reassuring.”

“Ardyn already separated us from Ignis and Gladio. Can’t be too careful.”

Still shivering, I followed him down the hall.

We were assaulted by a few MTs at a cross-section. Two of them went straight for Noct as the third came after me. Noctis used the ring to warp around them, draining their health, as I repeatedly sidestepped the one after me, barely able to slip away. Noctis got it away from me and that _would_ have been the end of it… if they didn’t _explode._

My ears were ringing as we were flattened against the walls by the blast. Something was pounding the inside of my skull, heat scorching the rest of my body.

“_______?” Noctis coughed. I whimpered, not wanting to move. “You okay?”

“I think so…” I said in a quick whisper. I slowly righted myself, the heat still flaring up when I moved my hands. My vision was a bit wonky, though.

“Uh—your glasses…”

I blinked and took them off to clean them. But… one lense was cracked on the left side, its arms branching out.

“Oh…” I mumbled. Great. This day couldn’t get any worse. I sighed. “I’ll get used to it.”

I cleaned them off with my shirt and put them back on. Already the inconsistency was bothering me. I _hated_ when my glasses were smudged but now something had happened to them that I couldn’t fix. My shoulders slumped.

“At least I’m not blind.”

Back down the halls we went.

Eventually we found a door with A-02 printed on it. It opened up to reveal a staircase leading upward. And who should be at the top of it…?

“There!”

I watched Noctis run after him, sprinting up the stairs with him. Ardyn chuckled to himself over the speakers again. Then it clicked in my head.

“Noct, wait!”

As we turned the corner, Prompto was gone and an MT had taken his place.

_“Poor Prompto must be feeling the heat right about now.”_

Fueled by rage, Noctis made quick work of it.

“Noct…”

“What.”

“I don’t think that’s Prompto…”

“You _think?”_

His shortness with me caused my mouth to clamp shut. Maybe I should wait…

“Come on.”

I followed him silently through the corridor, slipping between walls and boxes and pipes. At the end of it was a metal gate leading to a storeroom—with none other than _Prompto_ inside it.

He looked just as we’d left him, only he was slumping over in a chair. My mind couldn’t tell if it was another trick or not. Noctis tried the door.

“Dammit! It won’t budge!”

“Prompto…?” My hands gripped the gate’s bars as I peered through. “Prompto!”

He was either out cold or… not really Prompto.

“There’s gotta be another way in there,” Noctis said. We headed to the left and found another A-02 door. It opened for us. An MT was waiting inside and I was prepared to jump out of the way. It stumbled toward us and fell over.

It was another storeroom. A few shelves jutted out from the left, filled with supplies of all sorts, but unfortunately not the healing kind. Noctis found a Hi-Elixir on the floor and took it. But on the right side of the room, the wall resembled a metal divider more than anything. Near the back was an opening we could slip through.

As we scooted under the support beams inside the wall, tensions rose as a muffled voice called out, and not Ardyn’s.

“Noct! Help me!”

Our hearts jumped. It was Prompto!

_It_ **_is_ ** _him!_

_…Is it…?_

My mind just couldn’t shake the image of a man that looked, acted, and sounded _exactly_ like Gladio instantly turning into Ardyn.

But when we came into the storage room…

_“Get out of my way!”_

Noctis saw red as we were promptly ambushed by an MT and a giant, black spider-like daemon. He went straight for the spider, its legs like spears and jabbing at us. Wanting to help, I finally gathered my courage and went for the weapon the MT was holding. My hands locked around the one holding the axe and _pulled._

As Noctis warred with the spider, taking its life with the Ring, I narrowly avoided the axe’s blade hitting my face and tried shoving the MT back, trying to get it to loosen its grip. One foot kicked at it. It shook and shuddered, its weird body flailing at me and trying to swing with me still attached.

“Just- give it- _here!”_ I grunted. I was forced to let go as it swung again. “Noct!”

He flickered over with a short warp and banished the daemon inside the MT, its entire body crippling into black dust, including the axe. Then his attention turned back to the spider. I then decided that getting to Prompto was far more important than my own personal safety and I sprinted around the thing.

“Hey!” I shouted, trying to distract it. “Ungoliant!”

It swiped at Noctis, who was busy trying to drain its health, before turning to me.

“The trees are over here.”

“_______-!” Noctis called.

“Just _kill it!”_

The spider lunged for me and I narrowly avoided it, choosing to run further into the room, which was much bigger than we had seen. Noctis warped forward after it, continuing his draining and then killing the thing with a burst of magic fire from the Ring.

“Don’t do that again!” Noctis scolded me worriedly. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

“Better than you doing all the work…” I said, breathing heavily.

Not having the energy to argue, Noctis led me to the area of the room Prompto was in. We had to climb between some stacks of boxes, but we were there.

“Prompto…?” I asked quietly. Noctis gestured for me to stay back as he approached him. He hadn’t moved since we had seen him.

_I don’t think it’s him… He would’ve come to help or have said something more…_

Noctis laid a hand on his shoulder. The MT in his place crumpled to the floor.

“Another _trick,”_ Noctis hissed, hands flexing into fists repeatedly. “Back to _square one!”_

The gate opened easily from this side. And to the right of it was another keycard update station. I gave Noct mine to upgrade.

“Security clearance raised to level three,” the automated voice announced. “Access to level three zones authorized.”

_“Ah!”_ Ardyn taunted us once more. _“You should have seen the looks on your faces!”_

We headed back into the hallway, ignoring him.

_“You’d best hurry; next time, it might_ **_really_ ** _be your friend!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I can add SCP Foundation and Silmarillion References to the tags now...?


	7. Apocalypsis Noctis - Pars Tria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _______ finally summons the courage to tell her brother something...

The creeping dread of the keep continued to rise up our backs the further our feet crawled forward. The lighting hadn’t changed but somehow it felt like the place was getting darker. We skirted around a demented MT and found ourselves in a hallway with industrial gate-doors on both sides. They opened as we took a step down it.

_“That’s one of my personal favorites,”_ Ardyn said in a low voice over the speakers. My guard went up, hairs rising and goosebumps shivering their way down my arms. I stayed close to Noctis as all went quiet. We glanced into one room, found a piece of mythril of all things, and hurried out. _“Are you_ **_certain_ ** _it wasn’t the real thing? Wouldn’t want to make a_ **_mistake_** _.”_

He chuckled again, pleased with himself. Back to quiet we went. As we looked behind the other doors.

Both of us were remaining quiet to spite the man, I think. We wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction again, not after what he’d already pulled. Once again, my heart ached for Prompto. Where was he really? Was he okay? He wasn’t hurt, was he?

_With Ardyn involved, I doubt he’s perfectly fine._

The last room on the left, we were greeted with a single imp that Noctis took care of easily. Then back down the hallway we went, fighting another MT on the way.

After walking around for what felt like ages, I finally found the right word to describe the whole building: _hollow._ Even though the place was filled with boxes and items of all sorts jammed into every corner these people could find, it felt _empty._ We hadn’t seen a single human person since we got separated from Ignis and Gladio. It was eerie. The only thing Niflheim seemed to be inhabited by were MTs and daemons. Nervousness rose in my throat at the thought. Apprehension boiled over both me and Noct. It was like a cloud, a thick fog hovering over us, getting thicker and thicker the further we went. Ardyn’s taunts weren’t helping, either, though I doubt they were designed to.

Helpless. That’s what we were. Utterly, inexplicably _helpless._ Almost—we had the Ring, but other than that, we had no control over _anything._ Ardyn was pulling the strings, _enjoying_ his arduous torture of us. He was _playing_ with us. Tricking us, guiding us, leaving no stone unturned. He’d orchestrated this whole predicament and was now watching it unfold with _pleasure._

_We just had to walk right into the trap._

I gasped as we found a small room among the long corridors. Bodies were cast all over the floor. Armored ones, Magitek units, so not really people, but it was still a jarring sight. I was shaking as we crossed over the floor to the stairway on the left.

_“Oh, it’s just_ **_so_ ** _unfair!”_ Ardyn mocked us as we carefully stepped over the MTs. We crossed over the platform and back down as he laughed at us once more.

At long last we came to another giant, spacious room with a supporting beam in the center. Three other bridges connected to it on all sides. More MT bodies were on our catwalk. We tiptoed around them.

One promptly shot up with a scream and latched onto Noctis. It pulled him down and he started struggling for freedom. With a racing heart, I hurried to kick at its head, its arms reaching up to grab at Noct. He managed to kick it away, only for it to blow up on our faces, literally.

My heart _lurched_ as I was launched backwards into the railing, nearly tipping over it. Everything felt like it was going upside down until Noctis caught my arm and pulled me back onto the platform.

“You okay?” he breathed. I nodded, hating that my poor glasses were taking a beating. I was lucky they hadn’t shattered and that no glass had gotten in my eyes.

I stood there, feeling like I was slowly turning into a gas that would one day float away into the spirit realm. I’d never been this _scared_ before. So many times over the last two months had my life been on the line but it wasn’t until now that I realized how easily I could lose it here. Lose it to _Ardyn’s_ machinations, and prematurely before I could help Noctis fix his world.

“_______?”

I nodded again. With a single breath, I whispered, “Frightened.”

“Yeah. Me too.” He paused, unsure of what else to say. “We… We can get through this. It’s worth it, right, for the Crystal. And we get it and get out of here, we’ll be okay. ...Okay?”

_He really has no idea. That at the end of this, we…_

“So let’s go—” “—Noctis—!”

He paused again. My head hung down, unable to look at his face let alone into his eyes.

“What?” he asked, confused.

“I… I have… to tell you something,” I croaked.

_What? Why are you doing this_ **_now?_ **

_He deserves to know!_

_But_ **_now?!_ **

“What is it?”

“Um… Well…”

_How do you tell someone they’re going to_ **_die?!_ **

“It’s about… the vision Pryna gave me back in Altissia…”

_“That?_ Look, I get you’re upset and you have every right to be, but I don’t think now is the time to talk about it.”

I shook my head. “I know! I know that, but that’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean? Are you sure this can’t wait?”

“I…” My shoulder dropped in a slump. “Noct, we could _die_ at the end of this…!”

“You think I don’t know that?”

_How do I say it with words? Do I write it down, type it out?_

I shook my head. “No! I mean, yes— I mean… Noct—we… actually might die at the end of this…!”

He regarded me with bewilderment and an expression that read ‘well, _obviously’._

“That’s… what we have to do.”

“‘What we have to do’?”

“Yes! To… to defeat the darkness.”

“...Who told you _that?”_

“...Pryna…”

Silence fell on us like a weighted blanket. Noctis’ expression went from slightly annoyed and confused to unreadable. I instantly felt an _anvil_ of guilt crash onto my chest.

_I should’ve told him. I should’ve told him beforehand. He’s gonna hate me for keeping it from him, he’ll never want to talk to me again—!_

Noctis finally turned away towards the door leading to the inner chamber.

“...Why didn’t you tell me…?” he asked quietly.

“I-I… I don’t know, I was trying to process it and then you kept almost dying and I was having an inner crisis, and—”

“Did Pryna say _when?”_

“Ah— No… Not that I remember… But…”

“Then we’ll deal with it _later.”_

“Huh? But—”

_“Later.”_

He marched towards the door. It beeped and opened for us. Noctis walked through as I watched. He hadn’t even asked _how_ we’d die. Did he even believe me?

My feet carried me slowly forward after him. He had turned right, probably to have some feeling of knowing where he was going when he really didn’t. Maybe to get his mind off the nuclear bomb I’d just dropped on him.

“Hurry the hell up.”

“S-sorry, coming…”

Over the next catwalk was… an elevator. Great. Stuck in a small room with Noctis after I’d just admitted to lying by omission. In we went.

The hum of the elevator as it carried us up was a small distraction, but it didn’t stop me from stealing glances at Noctis to gauge his emotions. He was very hard to read. His hands were flexing slightly. He wasn’t taking it well, was he? I wouldn’t expect him to.

“...Um, Noct?” I prompted gently.

“Don’t.” His voice sounded a little strained. “Just… don’t.”

“I’m sorry…”

“I said don’t.”

The guilt increased its weight.

The elevator opened and out we stepped onto, you guessed it, another catwalk suspended over nothing. I was beginning to lose hope in this building's layout and decorations; everything looked the same.

_Don’t look down, don’t look down…_

_Don’t think about how Noct probably hates you now…_

_Not helping._

_“Your heart’s desire, so_ **_close_ ** _now!”_ Ardyn teased us over the speakers. _“Soon it will be within your grasp.”_

We walked onto the central platform. It was circular with a circular ramp leading up to something at the center.

_“I suggest you take the central elevator. It will take you to your goal.”_

“Aren’t you helpful, now…” Noctis muttered. The elevator didn’t work when we went inside, so we’d have to fix it. We gazed around at the other catwalks and where they led. A console was at the end of one of them. We went to see it.

The creaking of the metal made me a little nervous. It didn’t look like there was much supporting us as all, under the platform. I swallowed and followed Noctis as best I could without saying anything lest I hurt him or annoy him further.

“Gotta find a way to make it move,” Noctis said to himself. I assumed the console was for the elevator. “Maybe that way.”

He sounded exhausted, weight to his voice. I would have suggested taking a break, but my mouth didn’t feel like working with me.

The next catwalk led to a larger platform with a large, open doorway in the wall. Loud footsteps marched around ahead. I assumed it was more MTs until we got closer and saw further. Then every last drop of feeling safe I had left _plummeted_ to the ground and dissipated into the air.

There was a daemon patrolling the storeroom before us, and not just an imp or one of those spider things we fought earlier. It was a _giant,_ like the red ones we’d fought in Costlemark. This one was pure black and carried a sword to match its size. Its armor glistened in the low light.

“Alright,” Noctis said as he came to a stop. “You’re staying here.”

I did a double take. “What?”

“Stay here. I’ll sneak around that thing and fix the elevator.”

“Wha-? But what about staying together? Isn’t that what we—?”

“_______, just _stay here,_ okay? I’m not risking one of us making a wrong move and getting us both killed—prematurely.”

He was glaring at me now, hurt in his eyes.

“I… I’m sorry, Noct, really, but I—” I tried to explain my reasoning for keeping our true destiny from him but he interrupted.

_“Stay._ Hide in the elevator if you have to. I’ll be back.”

He turned to stalk off towards the storeroom with the giant in it. I took a step after him.

“But—! We can’t just—!” I tried again.

_“I said_ **_stay._** _”_

I stood there confused as he left. We’d been doing just fine before this. Why would he just _leave me?_

_“Oh, poor thing,”_ Ardyn crooned through the speakers. _“Being left behind, are we? Said something we shouldn’t have?”_

_I don’t… I… What should I have done then?_

_“Not to worry, little healer. I’ll spare you more anguish for now. You’ve created enough of it yourself!_

I went to sink down and lean against a wall as Ardyn’s laugh echoed through the elevator chamber.

-

_“If a king cannot protect himself, how is he to protect others?”_

Noctis bristled at Ardyn’s words as their implication burned into his skin. He didn’t need any reminders of his insecurities, his doubts about himself taking the throne. He had enough to worry about.

Getting past the giant guard was easy with the Ring. Or so he thought. He nearly made it the other side of the platform when it came crawling right back up through the black sludge daemons seemed to spawn from. Noctis darted behind large crates. The giant came patrolling where he was, making the platform shake beneath his feet and his heart pound. He tried to keep his breath even, but it was so damn hard when all he could think about was what _______ had told him. What she had apparently been keeping from him for some time now.

He didn’t even _want_ to think about it. He had to distract himself; this night just kept getting worse. When the daemon was far enough away, he made a run for the opposite side of the room. There was a walkway leading to somewhere safe. He made it, heart pounding against his chest. Adrenaline pulsed through him, making him almost numb to his panic when he looked behind him to see the dumb brute hadn’t followed or seen him.

Noctis let out a breath. That was close.

Searching for the elevator’s controls was no easy task, especially in such a room that was so confusing, he got lost several times in it. Whoever had built the place obviously didn’t plan this area very well. Like the rest of the building, it was full of boxes, crates, shelves, tables, and a few chairs here and there. Everything looked the same with the exception of a more spacious platform connected to all the other ones. Demented MTs were patrolling a few of the smaller sections. Noctis figured that’s where he had to go if it was being guarded.

His mind focused on his task, barely acknowledging what it really wanted to contemplate. Worry pricked his heart as he thought about _______ alone back in the elevator room, but she’d be fine. He kept her behind both so they didn’t slip and attract the guards’ attentions and so he didn’t immediately have a mental breakdown about what she’d told him. So he forced himself to keep track of his current goal, repeating it to himself, rubbing the back of his neck, and hoping it hadn’t really happened.

He came to a small lift and stepped onto it. With the press of a button, he ascended to higher platforms.

“What could she even mean by that…” he whispered to himself, unable to let it go at that moment as he thought it. Obviously he knew what she _meant,_ but…

No. It didn’t matter. Getting to the Crystal did. Finding Gladio, Ignis, and Prompto did. After all of that, they could figure it out. They could have a long discussion about it, and decide to go from there.

The controls were on the new platform. On the desk was a generator keycard. Finally, the smallest bit of hope.

“All keyed up,” he said to himself. He almost wished _______ was there with him. Hopefully she was still safe at the elevator. All he had to do was get back.

_When I get back, maybe we can talk it out a bit more…? She didn’t give me any specifics… Not that I asked for anything…_

How long had she been keeping it from him, he wondered? It was no wonder her protective emotions had been all over the place since they left Altissia. He couldn’t even imagine how she felt. But to tell him everything but that detail? Why hadn’t she told him? Did she get the vision wrong or something? Did _Luna_ tell her this and she was sparing his feelings? Did they both know or was it just her? How deep did this thing go?

Noctis stopped at the entrance to the storeroom platform. The giant was still patrolling his circles. Anger and hurt welled up inside him as he watched it go round. How could she just _keep_ that from? Was she ever planning on telling him or did the guilt just pile on until she had to say something? And why _then?_ Of all the places and of all the times, she had to tell him there and then. Randomly. Without any warning whatsoever. How could he just get past that? What did she expect from him? That he’d ve fine with it? Of course he wasn’t! She most likely expected he’d be angry at her, though, and he was. But he didn’t even know how to process it.

_Maybe that’s what took her so long. Everything that’s happened and then…_ **_that._ **

Noctis shoved those feelings down. He had to get moving before Ardyn sent anything after her. He decided to make quick work of the black giant with the Ring and book it.

Noctis’ anger lessened when he saw her waiting for him, sitting on the ground and pressed against the railing on the catwalk. She’d pulled her jacket so far around her that it almost looked like a blanket. She looked so small. So _sad._ He exhaled.

“Hey,” he greeted her, unsure of how else to do so. “Got a generator key.”

Her head jerked up to see him. “Oh. That’s good.”

She stood. Noctis wanted to tell her that everything was okay now that he’d taken some time on his own to think about what she’d told him. But he couldn’t, because it _wasn’t_ okay. So how did he convey all his thoughts and feelings without sidetracking them for a while?

“You okay?” he asked, completely bypassing his own thoughts. His brain and mouth did not wish to cooperate today, it would seem. “Anything happen?”

“Not really…” She was looking at anything but him. An odd quiet settled between them.

“Well… Let’s go see if this works.”

He could feel her gaze on him as he passed by to find the generator controls again. He wasn’t sure why he was ignoring everything he’d just thought but he wasn’t going to complain if progress was being made.

Maybe he should let her do it? Would that help restore some of the peace between them? He paused when he reached the catwalk to the generator. She caught up with him and waited for his next move. He went up to the console and handed her the card.

“Slide it here,” he pointed to the slot on the console. His other hand hovered over a button.

“Oh, okay,” she said quietly. She did as told. Noctis pressed the button. She gave him the keycard back and together they watched the elevator light up with power. A weight was lifted off his chest. “It worked…!”

“Yeah…”

_“The higher you climb…!”_

Every bone in Noctis’ body went into attack mode as he took a defensive stance at Ardyn’s voice. Rage lit up and warmed him like a wildfire.

“Come on.”

He led _______ back down the catwalk, trying to ignore the dear chancellor’s constant taunting.

_“...The further you fall.”_

They came to an abrupt _halt_ as something _big_ landed on the platform in front of them. Their legs shook with the catwalk beneath them. _______ whimpered behind Noctis and he looked up.

The black giant had blocked their way. It swung its sword up.

“Noct…!” _______ latched onto him, pulling him back. He shoved her back, too, both of them barely making it out of the way as the sword _crashing_ into the catwalk. They almost fell to the floor but with some effort managed to keep each other up. “Run!”

_“Where?!”_

The giant swung its arms up again. Noctis felt a hard shove from behind.

“What are you _doing?!”_

“Go _under it! Move!”_

She shoved him again as the swung came swinging down.

_“_______!”_

He barely landed on the safe part of the platform beneath the ugly daemon before he twisted around to see the rest of the catwalk tumbling into the abyss below. His heart wrenched.

**_“_______!”_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re not stoppin’ any time soon B)


	8. Apocalypsis Astrārum - Pars Una

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fallen again, _______ finds a new but familiar companion. She just has to heal him first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!  
> I did not proofread this.  
> Sorry in advance.
> 
> Also: I was not trained in how to do CPR whatsoever so many apologies for inaccuracy. Please do not use the beginning as a guide for it.  
> [insert Disclaimer Song here]

_Crash!_

**Clang!**

**_Thud._ **

My body was practically thrown to the metal floor. Everything went black for a moment before I slowly gained consciousness again and opened my eyes.

_What… Did I fall again?_

I sucked in a breath as half of my body ached as I rolled onto my back. A dull pain trembled in my spine as it got comfortable once more. Above me, I could barely make out through the darkness the platform I’d fallen from.

_Is Noctis okay?_

_He’d better be, after I saved him._

_He probably feels terrible._

_Why wouldn’t he? After what you told him…_

Guilt crushed my chest. Why had I chosen _now_ of all times to get that weight off me? Why _then?_ Why not near the end?

_I guess… Maybe I couldn’t take holding it in any longer… Who knows when our time is really up? It could be any moment now._

Wanting to flee such thoughts, I groaned and sat up. It would seem I was on another railed-in platform, this one smaller than the one above. The pieces that had fallen with me lay broken and unmoving behind me. The little flashlight circle on my shirt that my friends had given me so long ago now was my only light in the otherwise dimness of the keep. It illuminated only so much.

_Strange: first I fall to this world, then further into darkness…_

_Kinda like my whole character arc, huh…_

As I stood and took in my surroundings, my eyes caught something bright white lying near the rubble. I took a curious step towards it, but remained wary. Then my heart jumped and I hurried over to it.

“Ravus…!”

_Wait._

I paused right as I reached him. What if it was another trap?

“R-Ravus…?”

His eyes were closed. He was lying on his back like he was asleep. There didn’t seem to be much sign of a struggle. But…

A sword was stuck blade down in the metal mesh that held us up. A prosthetic arm, also metal, was still attached to it. The blade of the sword was black, a winged design made of metalwork where it met the hilt.

_What’s this doing here? Didn’t Ravus use a different one?_

It didn’t matter. I shook my head and knelt at Ravus’ side. He didn’t stir. I checked his wrist for a pulse but I’d never been good at that so I couldn’t tell if he was _dead_ or if I was just doing it wrong.

“Please be alive,” I whispered, thinking of poor Luna back in Altissia, not knowing her brother might be dying. _“Please_ be alive…”

My heart and lungs were in overdrive, beating and inhaling fast as I started to panic. I rested my head to his chest. Either his armor was too thick to hear a heartbeat or…

 _“Please,_ Ravus…!” I continued to say. “I don’t want to be all alone here…!”

_CPR? Will that work? How long has he been here?_

_You don’t even know_ **_how_ ** _to do CPR!_

_Doesn’t mean I can’t try! I’ve seen people do it before!_

_Yeah, in movies! Those aren’t real!_

_Surely that sort of fiction is based in truth!_

_This is a terrible idea!_

Even so, I had to try _something._

_What did that post say…? About the right beat? The songs to use?_

_You_ **_have_ ** _another way of helping him!_

_No magic, dipshit, remember?!_

I positioned my hands over his chest, arms straight and wishing they wouldn’t bend whenever I’d start pushing.

_Alright. Worth a shot._

One, two, three, four—

“Stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive,” I whispered. “One, two, three, four—”

Nothing was happening. Was I doing it wrong? What if he was _dead?!_

“Please, please, please, please, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive— _aagh!”_

My hands fell to my sides. My lungs took shaking yet heaving breaths.

_I can’t lose someone! Not now! Please, not now!_

In a last resort, I spotted the buttons on the side of his coat. I hurried to unfasten them, hoping that if— _when—_ he woke up, he’d forgive me.

Once his coat was open, I shoved my head down onto his chest and held my breath.

…

…

I inched my ear more towards where his heart should be.

…

…

…

 _There!_ _There it was!_ The smallest of _beats!_

_But how do I get him to wake up? I don’t trust myself to do CPR again._

“Um…” My head whipped around in every direction, as if the answer would magically appear out of nowhere.

 _You know you can_ **_use_ ** _magic._

 _But_ **_how?_ ** _Whatever suppressant system Ardyn has, I can’t get it back till we find him!_

“Ravus, please wake up,” I pleaded. _“Please.”_

Nothing.

“What about Luna? How am I supposed to tell her…?”

I couldn’t finish that sentence.

 _You’re a healer, god dammit, woman,_ **_do something!_ **

With a frustrated cry, my hands slapped to Ravus’ chest again.

“Come on, what was it she said…?”

Those words Luna used when she healed Ignis. They were… Something about… stars?

I closed my eyes. The image was so clear in my mind. Her hands cupping my dear friend’s face, bowing her head low to his. She said something, something I should have listened more closely to…!

_“Blessed stars of life and light…”_

My eyes shot open. _That was it!_ Her words, they rang through me, clear as crystal. I moved hands to Ravus’ heart.

“B-Blessed stars…” I mumbled breathlessly, _praying_ this would work, “...of life and light…”

_Shiva, if you’re listening…_

“Um… De-Deliver us… from darkness’ blight…?”

_..._ **_help me._ **

The faintest hint of blue burst out from my hands. My heart rose as high as the keep with hope.

“Please…! Oh—blessed stars of life and light…”

I repeated it again.

“Deliver us from darkness’ blight.”

And again.

“Blessed stars of life and light!”

_And again._

“Deliver us from darkness’ blight!”

The blue tinge spread over him. I politely demanded that it find the problem and _fix it._ It did as I asked.

“Blessed stars…”

 _Work, god dammit,_ **_work!_ **

“...from darkness’ blight!”

His eyes opened. There was a wheeze as the slight light faded and he rolled onto his side. I moved back as he cursed at Ardyn. When he noticed me, he advanced.

“You _will_ pay the price for this,” he seethed. I crawled backward and hit the railing behind me. “I will see _to it,_ I—”

He paused when I held my hands up in surrender.

“_______…”

“Hi…” I whispered, drawing my knees up.

“It’s really you.”

“Um…” I patted my sides and legs nervously. “Yep.”

“Where is Noctis?”

I slowly got to my feet and I looked up where I’d come from.

“Um… somewhere up there…”

Ravus noticed the rubble and sneered, _“Ardyn’s_ work, I assume.”

“...Unfortunately…”

He stalked over the sword, which still had his metal arm loosely attached to it.

“Oh… Sorry, I didn’t know how to… um, reattach…”

“I’ll make do without it.”

He batted it off and took the sword.

“There are more important things to be done. This _must_ be brought to the King.”

“What is—? Is it a royal arm…? Uh—sorry…”

I almost nervously laughed at such an insensitive yet unintentional joke. I avoided looking at the weird arm on the floor.

“It was his father’s,” Ravus answered. There was a weight to his voice I couldn't place. “I have been meaning to give it to him. When I heard you’d arrived, I went looking for him. Ardyn tricked me…”

“Oh… I’m sorry. …He did that to us, too…”

I checked him for his own sword. He had it sheathed at his side.

“Um… You don’t think he’d mind if _I_ used it for a bit… do you?”

Ravus looked at me with suspicion. “Why…?”

“Ah, well…” I scratched at my head before twisting my wrist around for comfort. “I only _just_ got my healing back and…”

I held my hand in front of me and tried to summon a snowflake. Nothing.

“Right,” Ravus exhaled frustratedly. “I forgot those bastards did something with the Crystal.”

“What? Like what?”

“As you can obviously tell, they used it to design a suppressant for its power and those who use it. ...I assume since your power is similar it works the same way.”

“Oh. Great.” I kicked at the ground. “So…”

My eyes locked with Noct’s dad’s sword.

“Do you think… he’d mind…?”

“...You have no other way of defense?”

“...Not really. Noct was using the Ring, and—”

“Then why the hell are you here?”

“Um…!” My eyebrows furrowed as I tried to justify my reasons. “Support…?”

Ravus stared at me with a scrutinizing gaze. I shrank back a little.

“You’re even more reckless than your brother,” he muttered. He regarded the blade in his hand seriously. “Though I suppose he would want to keep you safe…”

With a heavy sigh, he turned back to me and held the sword out.

“Until we find him. Then let me bring it to its rightful master.”

 _Relief_ crashed over. “Oh, _thank you.”_

I stepped forward to take it—only for anxiety to sweep away the relief.

The sword turned light blue. It rose vertically from Ravus’ hand. I retracted my step forward and took another back.

_Swoosh._

The blade _crashed_ into me in a flurry of light blue crystal particles. The old king’s sword and Ithilcalad circled me before fading. Ravus and I stood in silence. I stared down at myself, _mortified._ Ravus watched me with an incredulous look. No one said anything.

“Um…”

What is anyone to say when something like _that_ happens?

“I…”

“So what the gods say is true,” Ravus muttered, walking toward me. I stepped back again. “That the King and _Queen_ of light shall come when darkness veils the world.”

He reached me and paused.

“I always thought it meant my sister. Once more am I proven wrong.”

He shuffled down on one knee. I stared at him, almost in horror.

“Then I have fulfilled my duty. By accepting Noctis as king, then I must accept you.”

“Wait, Ravus—” I tried to interrupt.

“I would follow you and your brother, in atonement for my mistakes.”

“Ravus, _stop.”_

_What the fuck is happening?_

“I-I… I’m not… a _queen._ I’m just-I’m just- just _me,_ I—”

Ravus stood. “This is what you were _meant_ to do. Since the beginning when your souls were bound—”

“But I don’t _want to—!”_ I pleaded. “I… I _can’t!_ I’m supposed to _die,_ not— I didn’t _ask for this—!”_

“And I never asked to watch my sister suffer with a smile on her face,” Ravus chided. “Such is the _will of the gods.”_

“Then…” My gaze met the floor. “Then I won’t do it, I _won’t,_ I…”

“I said the same, and it cost me dearly. Precious time, my _loyalties,_ my _mother._ It is not for us to decide. I am merely grateful now that I have a little more time with Lunafreya, and that is thanks to _you.”_

I stared at him, still in horrific denial. Then I summoned the former king’s sword to me. My fingers ran over the flat part of the blade. It was a little heavy but I could get used to it. Perhaps in this way, Noctis could continue to protect me. It was his family’s, after all.

“I’m… not a _queen,_ but…” I whispered, “I have to find Noct. If this is how I do again…”

“I would accompany you,” Ravus said. “If you would have me.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. I don’t… know how to get around this place, anyway.”

He nodded and then looked up. “Noctis should be headed upwa—”

 _“Well, well, the little kitten has found herself a_ **_guardian._ ** _How cute.”_

I bristled. “I’ve got _claws,_ y’know!”

 _“I didn’t expect you to be able to revive Ravus, but it’s no matter, really. At the very least I’ve finally separated you from the Would-Be_ **_King._** _”_

If the rest of my magic was still activated, the room would’ve been full of static.

_“Becoming codependent, are we?”_

Ardyn’s chuckle reverberated through the metal of the room as his voice faded away.

“How the hell did you ever deal with him?” I asked Ravus annoyedly.

“False confidence in oneself tends to work,” he muttered. I didn’t really get what he meant but I accepted it anyway. “We should find an elevator this way.”

He stalked off down the catwalk before pausing to rebutton his coat. Then he looked back at me.

“And try not to _linger._ Your recklessness ends here, do you understand?”

“C-coming…” I picked up the pace to stay close to him.

The walls we treaded between were full of more pipes than usual. I briefly wondered if this was a specific department for them but held off asking Ravus for fear he’d want me to keep quiet. Fortunately, he was thinking otherwise.

“I find it difficult to believe that after what occurred in Altissia, you would want to come _here,”_ he uttered his disapproval. “You’re either very brave or very _foolish.”_

“I’ve… found both work pretty well…” I said back. He sighed.

“And these are who my sister argued so vehemently to defend: a spoiled prince and his senseless sister.”

Feeling a bit hurt, I asked, “...I thought you accepted us…”

“Acceptance does not often equal _favor.”_

_Oh…_

There was an odd hissing in the pipes that caught my attention before I could think of a response.

“Um, what exactly are these pipes here for?”

Ravus stopped dead in his tracks. I bumped into him.

 _“Did you hear that?”_ Ardyn teased dramatically through the speakers. _“There’s something out there.”_

Immediately after he spoke, the valves of the pipes turned and a green smoke came pouring out. One of the openings was level with my face; I bent over and started coughing.

“This way.” Ravus’ single arm grabbed me and pulled me down the hall. He turned right only yo be stopped by streams of the gas blocking our way to a large industrial door. “Damn him…!”

 _Props to him for powering through it,_ I thought as I covered my face with my free hand. My lungs worked overtime to inhale what little oxygen I could. My breaths became deeper, gasping.

“Ravus,” I coughed. “What do we do?”

_“A-ha! Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”_

“Fu-uck you!” I tried to shout at Ardyn, coughing midway. Ravus pulled me away and down the halls. “What about Noctis—?” I wheezed as the gas in my lungs began to hurt. “We need to find him…!”

“Perhaps you _are_ codependent,” Ravus hissed. “There’s a fan system down here.”

The pain in my lungs had started dully but was becoming shaper. I tried to cough it away but nothing seemed to help.

Ravus turned a corner, still half-dragging me. I pulled at my hand. He didn’t let go.

“You are _not_ going off to find Noctis,” he ordered. His grip was beginning to sting a little.

“You’re hurting me,” I countered. He loosened his hand. It didn’t seem like he’d let go soon, so I sighed and let him pull me.

After another minute of bland, piped surroundings and gas that grew thicker by the second, we found an open with three giant fans against one wall and a control panel next to it. Ravus finally let me go to flip some of the switches. The fans started up and the gas began to clear.

I sighed heavily in relief. My throat tickled and I coughed a little again, wheezing at the pain still in my lungs. Ravus’ hand was now at his heart, probably feeling similarly. I eyed his left shoulder, where the other one should have been.

“It should be clear soon,” he said.

“Why do you have that installed in the _first place?”_ I wheezed.

“It’s a defense mechanism. Since most of our soldiers are Magitek, they would be harmly minimally if at all.”

“Oh. That makes sense, I guess.”

A hiss and bubbling sounds interrupted us as a few daemons climbed out of the floor, leaving faded black sludge. I attempted to summon Ithilcalad hit was left with Noctis’ dad’s sword. Between the two of us, they were gone in a minute.

“Your technique is sloppy,” Ravus criticized after I leaned too far left. I’d corrected myself but he’d killed the thing for me anyway.

I glanced down at my new sword. With it came the knowledge to use it, but implementing said knowledge was more difficult than I hoped.

“It’s heavy,” was all I could come up with.

“You’d best get used to it, then.”

Once again, he stalked off down the hallway. I narrowed my eyes at him but said nothing.

_No need to be so mean about it._

We came across some MTs as we continued our search for the elevator. Ravus made no attempt to direct them elsewhere and gave them chestfuls of steel, leaving me to watch with fascination as he made quick work of them.

_I guess having only one arm isn't as much of an obstacle for him as I thought._

Further down the hallways, we turned right and found some imps. These I was able to help with. They skirted around Ravus and jumped behind him, letting me slash and hack away at them as I liked. The last one I killed I pretended was Ardyn and promptly stuck my sword through its skull. An eerie sense of satisfaction came with it, slightly scaring me for a second.

_Who would’ve thought violence would be that therapeutic?_

As we kept going, I started to wonder if Ravus really knew where we were going. We turned left and then right, sometimes made circles. Once we came to a dead end of a collapsed corridor. He swore and turned around.

“Um…” How did I approach this without setting him off? “Are we going the right way?”

“Yes.”

“...Are you sure?”

_Everything looks the same so I wouldn’t blame you if we were lost._

_“Yes,”_ he reiterated. “Now hurry.”

I guess he was right because we found the industrial door again. It thankfully led to a more linear path. All filled with MTs though.

_We’re lucky these ones don’t explode._

Everything looked a bit strange through my cracked lenses. In fact, I’d probably be better without them at this point. The way my vision was slightly split really rubbed me the wrong way. Perhaps I was simply too attached to them to let go just yet.

_I wonder if Luna can fix regular eyesight and not just Crystal-induced blindness._

The piped corridors led us right to a large room filled with tables, odd machines, and—yep— _boxes._ Near the back was a sort of vending machine but with weapons and healing items instead of food.

_Really shows you what they prioritize, huh?_

“Ooh!”

Next to it was a security clearance level thing—the ones Noctis used to raise our cards. I took mine out and swiped it. Ravus waited with a tapping foot.

“Security clearance raised to level four,” the machine’s voice announced. “Access to level four zones authorized.”

“Finished?” Ravus asked. I nodded. “Come.”

He walked away towards the newest hallway before I could say anything.

 _I’m not a_ **_dog._ **

I had half a mind to stay put to spite him but then thought otherwise. I wouldn’t find any of my friends that way. So off I followed.

Another hour, another boring corridor. If I was able to write home about Zegnautus Keep, then there wouldn’t be much to say other than its High Commander was a dick and its chancellor was an even _bigger_ dick. Also I’d gotten lost without my friends so 1/10 would not recommend. The poison gas was all that gave it some creative merit. But only _slightly._ -7 for too much hallway.

At the end of our twisting path was a door. Ravus held out his hand for me to wait as he stopped before it could automatically open. Muffled footsteps shuffled around behind it.

“Brace yourself,” he said quietly, unsheathing his sword. I summoned Noctis’ dad’s—which really needed a name by now.

‘ _Sword of the Father’ sounds cool._

And so it was.

Ravus stepped forward and the door opened. The room ahead of us was adjacent to an odd machine formation and filled with several demented MTs. They turned to greet us, shuffling like zombies.

“Go for one or two, I’ll take the rest.”

Sword sparkling with something electric, Ravus darted into their midst and cracked down on them, energy rushing around him in a circle. I spotted one moving out from the shadows and went straight for it. With both hands, I held it to my left and swung widely to the right, hitting it and shoving it back. Red energy crackled around it.

_Shit._

I hurried to dispose of it before it exploded and repeated my movements. It lunged to grab at me. I sidestepped to the right and brought my sword over my head as it stumbled. There was a red flash as I brought my hands down. I would’ve chopped it half had I been stronger. My feet turned and sprinted away as it erupted, the blast pushing me forward.

Ravus was busy with the other four and I helped get rid of one as two more fell and he handled the last. Red electricity sparkled around him. My heart lurched.

 _“Watch out!”_ I cried, unable to reach him in time. The blast hit him directly, forcing him back and fumbling to keep himself up against the wall. Given that was the last one, I hurried over. “You should be more careful…!”

His breath was ragged as I touched him, hand glowing faintly blue.

“How was I to know it would do that?” he mumbled, examining himself as I winced when the pain hit me. Exhaustion took over and I slumped. Everything was starting to ache now.

_Escape explosions—it’s that conversation with my friends all over again._

“Well, it’s over,” I scolded back, mostly to myself with the image of my friends still in mind. “You’re lucky you didn’t get your other arm blown off.”

“Hmph.” He righted himself and glanced me over. “You’re unharmed?”

“Relatively.”

“Then let us continue.”

Another automatic door led elsewhere to our left.

“How long do you think it will take to find Noct?” I asked as we skirted around some fallen MTs.

“Is that all you can find to talk about?” he hissed, annoyed. “If he isn’t staying where he is, it may take longer. You came here for the Crystal—I assume we may find him there.”

“How long will it take to get there?”

“It was placed under the highest security in the heart of the Keep. With our luck, it may be a while yet.”

My shoulders fell. I really shouldn’t have come here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, everyone! Let’s hope this one is much calmer than the last.
> 
> So, what are your thoughts on Ravus~? I have a feeling he and you are gonna have an interesting relationship...


	9. Apocalypsis Astrārum - Pars Dua

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Such revelations were not meant for any such occasions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god guys I’m so sorry this is so late I have no excuse other than Eravanthia got me into Genshin Impact and I still blame her for it
> 
> Anyway this one’s longer than the usual 3k words so hopefully 5.5k makes up for it!

“So… Can I… ask you… something?”

I eyed Ravus’ missing arm.

“Make it quick,” he muttered. We were continuing our way through the keep’s ever-twisting corridors.

“What… happened to you?”

He glanced back at me and caught my staring. My eyes darted away as my cheeks felt a bit warm.

He sighed. “The Ring that Noctis carries is a heavy burden. I once thought I was fit to wield it.”

_He used the Ring?? Geez, I am starting to not trust that thing!_

“Why?” I asked.

His remaining hand flexed and curled into a fist. “All I’ve ever wanted was to protect Lunafreya. That reason alone is why I was spared, I’m sure.”

“...Spared…?”

_You lost an_ **_arm._ **

“Has Noctis told you nothing?” Ravus muttered bitterly. “Surely he must know how it works.”

“It drains your lifeforce,” I said hesitantly. “He said it made his dad sick.”

“Yes. But you saw firsthand what happens to those _not_ of royal lineage. Your advisor was lucky he didn’t burn alive.”

_I’m so confused. What is that supposed to mean? Do people who use the Ring not usually survive?_

_…Is that how Noctis and I are supposed to die? The Ring burns him out like his dad, and… my magic does the same to me?_

“I don’t want that to happen to Noct…” I whispered, staring at the floor as we walked.

“I’m afraid there is nothing we can do to change it,” Ravus said solemnly.

_There’s got to be a way! A loophole, something!_

We passed by a regular door, a non-industrial, not automatic door. My heart lifted. Was it a resting place?

I broke from my place behind Ravus to open it. It was! A rest stop! Bunk beds and vending machines! _Safety!_

“Can we stop in here for a bit?” I asked. Ravus appeared behind me.

“Not for long,” he gave in easily. I supposed the High Commander had had enough for a short while, too.

My feet practically pranced into the room. I plopped down on a bunk and sighed. I hadn’t realized how much I was shivering. If I didn’t know better, I’d have said that the whole bed was shaking. The keep was really starting to get to me. I’d felt relatively safe (sort of) with Noctis. Ravus thankfully wasn’t a wild card, so he was fine for now. But having Ardyn breathe down my neck through the intercom was triggering my fight or flight (or in my case, _freeze)_ response.

My arms crossed over each other to hug me. I had no idea what was going to happen for once. It was always “we’ll find a boat”, “we’ll go to Altissia”, “we’ll head to Gralea”. Now it was “we’re going to find the crystal”. But what then? What happened _after_ we found the crystal? What would Ardyn do? What did he want?

My breaths were getting shorter, I noticed. Who would like being here? It was dark, it was cold, it was so, so _empty._ Why _was_ it so empty? Why was Ravus the only human person I’d seen?

Taking a few deep breaths, I decided to distract myself by asking him.

“Hey, um,” I said quietly, “can I ask you some things?”

“I don’t see why not,” Ravus muttered.

_What to ask first…?_

“Why is it so empty here?” I inquired. “There’s… no one here.”

Ravus let out a breath. I couldn’t tell what he was feeling.

“The nights grow longer as my sister’s strength wanes,” he began. “Over the years the days have been declining, but after Rite with Leviathan, she will not be able to carry on much longer as she is. With longer nights means more daemons. They’ve broken their binds in the laboratories and overrun the city. I doubt we will see anyone besides your friends. …And _Ardyn.”_

_Right, I remember Ignis said something about that. But the whole_ **_city_ ** _is under attack? Should we do something about that?_

_I don’t really want to be responsible for a whole city…_

_Too late! Ravus said you're already a queen :)_

“What do you think Ardyn wants with Noct?” I asked. “I can’t really figure it out. First he helped us and now he’s trying to kill us.”

“In all honesty, I’ve no idea,” Ravus aaid, teeth gritting at the mere thought of the man. “In the years I’ve worked here, not once have I ever been able to figure him out.”

“That’s… not good…”

“We’d best be careful if he’s watching. It seems he has control over the entire building.”

“Do you think we’ll _find_ Noct? Oh-! And Prompto! We lost Prompto on the way here. Do you think we could find him somewhere?”

Ravus didn’t look very concerned and less than impressed. “Are your friends the only thing you can find to speak about?”

I made a pouting face. “Is _Luna_ all you can find to speak about?”

He inhaled to say something before closing his mouth. Then he exhaled.

“This isn’t exactly the right setting to discuss hobbies,” he stated. “As for your friend, there _is_ one place they might’ve taken him. Unfortunately, it is far above us. It will take a while yet to reach him.”

My shoulders slumped. Poor Prompto… Hopefully Noct would find him first, then.

“If that is all, we should keep moving.”

I nodded and inhaled shakily. When he stood, I did the same but more slowly. We headed back out into the hallway.

More MT units were waiting around, ready to attack. We took turns hitting them in such narrow spaces. I am somewhat ashamed to say Ravus did most of the work; my new sword kept hitting the walls as I didn’t know how to fight in small areas.

“These _things_ always unnerved me,” he muttered after we dealt with two. They lay disintegrating on the floor. “They move so unnaturally.”

I nodded in agreement. “Same…”

The corridors were becoming more linear, thankfully. We turned a corner and there was one room and more hallway leading forward. No forks or four way stops. Just tunnels leading further into the lion’s den.

I _was_ curious about the rooms we passed by. Ravus walked swiftly and always ignored them. It was wonderful that he knew where he was going, but seeing as Noctis had found some useful things in random places, I thought it might be good to check anyway.

“Hey, what’s in here?” I asked, poking my head in one room on our left. It was full of shelves. Papers, files, and folders filled them. A single computer monitor balanced on top of one.

“Nothing of importance,” Ravus turned back. “If you linger, I will not wait for you.”

My feet hurried to catch up.

“And if you wander around, you are sure to attract unwanted _visitors.”_

“Sorry…” I whispered. He glanced back at me with a stern look.

“Don’t make my job more difficult.”

I lowered my head and looked down.

_I wonder if I can backtrack to where the car is and just wait._

The end of the corridor revealed another industrial door with green lights. Past that lied a set of rooms circling the center support. We fought off a few imps and journeyed further. Before we could continue to more hallways, Ardyn’s voice piped up.

_“Do be careful, little_ **_healer_** _; tragedy could strike at any moment.”_

I shivered as goosebumps shot up my arms. My hand almost reached for Ravus before I remembered he only had one arm and it was not on the same side of him as me.

The door opened. On the other side were more of them, though not with the same pattern. I sighed with relief as it would seem we’d reached an elevator! Some of the tension in my shoulders melted away. I hadn’t even noticed my heart rate had slowly sped up over the past half hour. As I pushed the button to go up, my mood lifted a little. We were one step closer to our goal!

Buuut of course we couldn’t get off _that_ easy.

Something flapped down behind us. Ravus was quick to turn around and face it. He stepped back. When I looked behind me, my heart nearly stopped, and I went cold.

I wasn’t really sure what I was looking at. It was big and brown and vaguely _bug-like._ It didn’t have the same beady eyes but it did have an almost human mouth with sharp teeth. Two horns or antennae curved out from its head. Its arms reminded me a little of a praying mantis’, though they had claws on the end. Its body was made of sinewy muscle with bat-like wings on its back, its legs bent back at the middle like it should have hooves but it didn’t. There were only taloned feet.

Ravus drew his sword. I summoned mine but backed into the closed elevator while it hummed, the contraption still on its way down.

“It would seem we’ll have to wait,” Ravus commented before dashing in to push it back. I stood frozen in place. This was much bigger than the MTs and imps we’d faced. Perhaps not as big as the giant that separated me and Noct, but tall enough to intimidate.

“Don’t just _stand_ there!” Ravus shouted, grunting as the thing slashed out at him.

_But I don’t have Noct with me! What am I supposed to do?_

The thing hit Ravus and my feet managed to hurry me forward a little.

“What do I do?” I asked in a small voice. The thing had a lengthy reach. How could I hit it without getting hurt?

“Some queen you make yourself out to be,” Ravus muttered, preparing a special attack but with not as much lightning as usual.

“But I’m _not—”_

“Either help me or _stay back.”_

I took a step back, now scared to fight something so big without my friends. I felt so helpless. What was I supposed to do?

My hands frantically began flexing and twisting. I tried to feel for any combative magic I could manage. Nothing came; no freezing, burning, crackling. I held the Sword of the Father like a young boy who had just been given a sword and told to fight a war.

_I can’t. I can’t._

_But you can! You must!_

**_I can’t._ **

The creature used its claws to slice and lash out at Ravus. He hacked away at it on his own, narrowly dodging its attacks or parrying them. It caught him off guard once, one of its sharp claws ripping into his white coat. My heart jolted.

_I need to do something! Why can’t I move?!_

He managed to shove it back. It emitted a small shriek before its attention turned to me. Its wings flared open and it charged, drawing its arms back to slice when it reached me. I still stood frozen. Ravus pushed me out of the way to take the brunt of it, swinging his blade to catch its attack. I heard him suppress a cry of pain.

_Come on!_ **_Do something!!_ **

_Where did all my knowledge go? How could I just forget it all? And right now??_

I looked at the sword in my hand. What kind of man was Noctis’ dad? Noct loved him, so he must have been a good man, at least. What would he do in this situation?

_Fight._

Fight? But how?

_Ravus and Lucis have bad blood between them. The least you can do is try to salvage some of that relationship._

_But—I’m not…_

_It doesn’t fucking matter, now_ **_move!_ **

As the creature backed Ravus against the wall, my body sprinted forward almost on its own. I had no idea what I was doing, but we weren’t going to get out of here alive if I didn’t do _something._

Some sort of sound left my mouth. I couldn’t tell if it was a battlecry or just a frightened squeal. I raised my arms up as the thing’s back was turned and brought my new sword down one of its wings. It shrieked and whipped around, the wing now drooping. Its claws almost smacked Ravus in the face. I stepped back.

“Um… Sorry…” I breathed.

It flexed its wings again, this time more painfully as it readied a sweeping attack. Ravus grabbed my arm and nearly dislocated it as he yanked me backward towards the now open elevator. My sword dissipated. The creature hurried after us but the elevator door closed before it could reach.

I took a deep breath and let out a very shaky one. Ravus took ragged breaths as he glared at me from the corner of his eyes. I reached out nervously and touched his armless side, hand glowing the faintest of light blues. I tried to suppress my reaction but ended up groaning anyway. Sharp pain stung my shoulder and all sorts of dull bruises would have formed everywhere had it been real.

We were both quiet as the elevator lifted us up. I wanted to apologize for being practically useless but decided against it. It wouldn’t help either of us. But without anything of use to say, that meant I stayed quiet and Ravus stayed frustrated and very unimpressed with me.

When we reached the right floor, the doors opened to reveal… more dusty hallway. Yay.

And the power went out.

Ravus took a deep breath. I shivered silently in the cold of the building. My flashlight circle on my shirt activated, granting us a little light.

“This way,” Ravus said, voice void of emotion. He turned right so right we went.

Anxiety crept up my shoulders as we heard something down the hall. I first thought of the old Slender games and then of SCP Containment Breach.

_Oh god, please don’t be a reality. The last thing I need is a containment breach…!_

_But… Ravus already said—_

**_Shut up._ **

_“What was that noise?”_ Ardyn teased us over the speakers.

“Just ignore him,” Ravus said flatly as my shivering increased. I was beginning to become hyper aware of all the noises in the facility. Metal creaked down the hall. Our footsteps seemed so very loud now; anything could find us. Even our own breathing unnerved me. What if it wasn't actually ours? I quickly glanced back as the feeling of being watched hovered me. Nothing.

There were a few lights still on: namely, the ones on the doors and on the floor to guide us. The doors wouldn’t open, though. The silence of the place was almost like a hollow wind gushing through a tunnel. Something scurried off further down, its footsteps sounding too close for comfort. We came to a room with filing cabinets and lots of control panels.

Something sharp dug into my leg and I yelped and kicked it away. I summoned the Father’s sword practically impaled and quartered the poor imp. With heaving breaths, I turned to Ravus.

“Um… What do we do?” I asked. My calf still stung a bit, but I’d be fine. Ravus turned away to find a control panel with a switch. He pulled it down. The keep’s emergency power came on. “Oh! Good.”

It was dim but it was better than nothing.

“The floor above us is the keep’s main laboratory,” Ravus informed me. “We’ll have to travel through it with caution.”

A cold shiver ran down my spine. The lab? Where the _daemons broke out?_

“Come.”

When Ravus entered the hallway, I jumped back with a gasp as something slammed into him. It was the creature from just before when we were calling the elevator.

_“I love surprises!”_ Ardyn teased as Ravus pushed the thing back.

“Take its other side,” he grunted through gritted teeth, blocking its talons. I slipped between the monster and the doorway and nervously poked at its wings again. It made a questioning shriek and turned awkwardly around in the narrow corridor.

“Um… Sorry…” I whispered meekly.

It lifted its arm and swung. I yanked my sword up, its weight not helping much for balance. The thing swiped at me again as Ravus attacked its back. He hit its wing like I did and it whipped around to face him.

“Sho-Should we go for the wings?” I asked quietly.

Before he could answer, the monster put all its weight into crashing into him, lashing out with great strength. He forced the former commander down the hall, causing him to land on his back. Not wanting Ravus to almost die again, I sprinted after them, lifting my sword, and swung from left to right, creating a deep gash on the creature’s back, just below its wings. I forced myself to work past the fear. I couldn’t let anyone die on my watch. I couldn’t stand by and do nothing again.

_Any moment, any moment… I could mess up._

_Then don’t._

“_______!” Ravus called as he got to his feet. The creature was lumbering back around to slash at me. “We need to retreat.”

The thing’s claws grazed me as I tried to dodge its attacks. It reared back for something stronger.

“Dive under it and we’ll run!”

“Are you sure?!” I called back, jumping back only for my shoulder to get hit. A muffled scream half-left my throat.

“Yes, now hurry!”

_Trust him, trust him!_

As I maneuvered my sword to fight the monster back, I tried looking for the opening. Its arms were long but it was tall, tall enough for me to go under. When it reared back again, I banished my sword and made the dive.

Pain flared through my shoulder as I landed on the injured one. Ravus pulled me up harshly, his own sword sheathed, and began pulling me down the hall. Even with the emergency power on, I could hardly see anything. The monster roared as I started panicking.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“For the stairs,” Ravus said. Something red passed by us, or we passed them, as the monster made its pursuit. I could hear its loud footsteps thundering down the halls. All I could see was the back of Ravus’ white coat. My heart was racing as his grip on my wrist tightened, pulling me forward further. It fluttered, frightened, when I stumbled over my feet.

“Stairs,” Ravus warned me as we reached the staircase. I nearly tripped over them. We raced up one set and then the noise stopped. The power went out again. We stopped, catching our breath.

_“Oh, you’ll fall for anything,”_ Ardyn crooned. Instead of anger, a wealth of despair washed over me, overpowering my other emotions. I sniffled, feeling my eyes begin to tear up.

_Why are we here? Just to suffer?_

_Finally I understand the meme._

“Forgive me, but we don’t have time to waste,” Ravus told me. “Your brother is waiting for you.”

I wiped at my eyes and nodded. I forced myself to shove everything that had happened down and follow Ravus.

Unfortunately, at the top of the staircase was a room with a daemon in it. It was similar to the spider one I’d fought with Noctis earlier. With Ravus and an actual sword this time, we were able to dispose of it relatively quickly.

I grabbed at my shoulder as it melted into black mist. My jacket was ripped and I felt something wet on it. I inhaled and asked Ravus if he had any potions.

“We should be able to find one in a storage room somewhere,” he said, shaking his head. “Let me look.”

In what light we could find, he examined the gashes from the creature’s claws.

“We’ll have to be cautious. Let me handle anything bigger than an imp. We can’t risk this getting infected.”

I nodded, satisfied with that plan. Ravus beckoned me to follow him again. All the doors were out of power except one, so we journeyed through it to find the emergency power switch. Simple enough. Ravus flipped the switch as I tried to cover my wound with more jacket. We were instantly set upon by MTs and the winged monster.

“Lead it around,” Ravus said as the monster came at us from down the hall. We disposed of the MTs and let the creature into the room, turning it around and exiting when the doorway was open. “We have no time to fight it.”

My legs were starting to feel heavy from all the walking and running. Ravus turned right when we came back to the crossroads room. I was behind him a few feet. The monster came after us, nearly catching up. Ravus paused to grab my hand again and pulled me through the doorway and onto another staircase. My shoulder was aching, stinging with pain.

Finally we came to a store room corridor that led further into the keep. We stopped here to rest for a moment as Ravus went through the supplies to see if there was anything that could help us.

“Here,” he muttered when he found something. He came to where I was sitting on an unopened box and handed me a high-potion. I crushed it as soon as it came into grip. The pain melted away and my shoulders relaxed.

“Thank you,” I bid him quietly. “Sorry I’m so useless.”

“We don’t have time for you to feel sorry for yourself.”

I winced. “Sorry…”

“If you want to make better on it, use your actions.”

“Right…”

“But even so…” He sighed and looked towards the next hallway. “You’re doing better than I would have thought. Though I fear to imagine what you would’ve done without me.”

I lowered my head, knowing the answer would be to try and explore only to stay out for a while after seeing a few daemons. That monster that was chasing us would’ve killed me by now for sure without Ravus.

“Thank you for helping me,” I told him.

“Think nothing of it. Keep your guard up on this floor. I doubt we’ll get through it unscathed. If that bastard has anything to do with it…”

We continued on, finally reaching the keep’s laboratory.

_“Now, Ravus knows most of this already, but I suppose I can humor you, little healer.”_

Ardyn’s voice made my heart sink as I bristled silently. We walked into a room filled with control panels and unopened boxes.

_“The empire made considerable inroads into the science of daemons. Well, after I showed them the way, of course.”_

“Of course he did,” Ravus spat under his breath. We crossed into the room ahead of us. There were more control panels and desks on platforms on either side of us. At the other end was a large diagram of something on the wall, little squares and lights between them. Maybe a map of the floor?

_“We’d managed to make daemons… right here.”_

_Make…? You can_ **_make_ ** _a daemon?_

We searched around a little, finding nothing of use to fiddle with. So we continued to the next room through the door that wasn’t locked.

The next room set me up with a nice feeling of _dread._ It was full of _cages._ None of them were occupied. The whole room, just a storage for whatever kinds of monsters they’d kept there. My heart sank lower.

_“Ever wonder where daemons come from?”_

“This way,” Ravus looked unnerved as well.

_“Once upon a time, they were children of nature—beasts and men.”_

**_What?_ **

_“Aww… And you’ve killed so many.”_

_We’ve been_ **_killing people_** _?!_

_No. That can’t be right. He’s lying. He’s trying to trick you again._

On one of the boxes next to a cage, I spotted a piece of paper. It looked like someone’s research notes.

_‘Plasmodia-based biological weapons exhibit an acute aversion to light, their cellular structure breaking down within moments of exposure. As the cells are converted to benign molecules, there is no inherent danger even should such a reaction occur. Lightproof armor presents a simple yet effective solution to the problem.’_

_W-What… What does that even mean? ‘Lightproof armor’? Are the MTs made out of daemons?_

_That stuff that came from Ardyn’s face when I used my magic on him at the Rite… ..._ ** _Is_ ** _he a daemon?!_

“I found a card,” Ravus said. “We should be able to use it to open doors to get out of this unholy place.”

We headed back to the room with the map of the floor. Ravus inserted the card and activated something. We still needed another, though.

_“Your heads can do more than wear a crown. Use them!”_

We bristled silently and went to find the next card. When we had it, another panel was activated. We were set upon by imps, which by now I knew meant we were going in the right direction.

The door that opened did so to more desk space and lots of filing cabinets. A report was on one of the tables.

_‘Including cases around the village, the number of missing now stands at 1,657. … attribute the disappearance to an infectious disease and investigations continue as regards to a potential connection to the daemon outbreak. … quarantining of West Gralea is complete, and other sectors remain infection free.’_

_A disease and daemons? Didn’t I read something about that? About the healer of Lucis or something?_

I couldn’t remember the details, though, but I knew they had to be connected somehow.

_Is Ardyn…? Ha, no, that’s impossible…_

_Or is he?_

“Hey, Ravus,” I asked. He was searching the desks next to me. “What do you know about Ardyn’s backstory?”

“Not much,” he answered, looking up. “He was a research associate of Dr. Bersithia’s before he became chancellor. I haven’t bothered to learn anything else.”

“And… what’s this daemon disease that infected a whole village and sector?”

“Little is known about it. People get sick and they go missing. Though, with what Ardyn said earlier, I’m beginning to think perhaps they turned into something more sinister.”

“You believe that?” I set the paper down. “We… That we’ve been killing…”

“They are not human anymore. ...It is best not to dwell upon it.”

He looked away and I gazed back down.

_We’ve been killing…_ **_people._ ** _People who got this disease. Was there no cure for it? Can we not turn them back?_

_I could… I could try… Maybe my healing extends that far._

“My sister healed those afflicted with it,” Ravus said quietly. “It is called the _Starscourge.”_

**Starscourge.** That was it. That came from the Meteor Titan caught. So there was a cure…!

“But those who have fully transformed could not be turned back. I would not suggest making any attempts at trying it yourself. As powerful as your magic is, you are still not the Oracle.”

_…Right. I couldn’t heal Ignis’ blindness. Though I do wonder… If I repeat that phrase, can I get the rest of my magic back?_

_Feels like a weird thing to do in front of Ravus. Maybe wait till later._

I shoved the fact that I’d been killing real people down as far as it could go. Yet still it came back to haunt me as the silence passed over us coldly. I found another report about the disease and went to join Ravus at the door.

The next room looked like a conference room. Screens depicting the Empire’s coat of arms were all the light to be found in there. Imps sprouted up from the floor and we made swift work of them. Guilt slammed into my chest.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered as the last one disintegrated. “That never should have happened to you.”

_“How sweet,”_ Ardyn crooned once more over the intercom. _“Perhaps if you cry hard enough for them, they’ll all turn back into humans again.”_

I grit my teeth and went after Ravus to backtrack a little.

We found a room we hadn’t been in yet. There was a lower part of the room with a single MT standing there. As Ardyn spoke, we took care of it.

_“The infantry units you callously dub ‘MTs’ all began as babes in this very facility._

We finished off the second in a corner we almost missed.

_“Imprinted with serial codes and incubated until they were strong enough to fight. What a pity: innocent souls fated to suffer… all at the hands of a foreign king and his even more foreign friend.”_

_This can’t be true. It can’t be. Is he saying they’re clones and not robotic? That we’ve been killing people infected with that disease? Who were only born for one purpose? Never to live life as we were meant to?_

My heart _ached._ Tears threatened to well up the further I thought about it. Such heinous crimes these people had committed. Who could ever lack such soul and empathy? Was the whole staff made of sociopaths?

_“Well, not so ‘MT’ after all, are they?”_

“What kind of _sick_ people did you work with?” I asked Ravus, much offense evident in my words. His expression was pained, full of guilt. How could he have worked with such _monsters?_

“The abhorrent kind,” he admitted quietly. “Never again will I…”

He trailed off. Then he stepped forward, grabbing something off a nearby surface.

“...We should continue onward.”

With all three keycards and very heavy hearts, we finally unlocked the way out. We found a room that seemed to be half filing cabinets, half break room. The imps that ambushed us let us know we were going the right way.

_Killing people, innocent people, all those soldiers. They were_ **_possessed._ **

I remembered when I’d sent one toppling off a tower. My tear duct levels kept rising. Those hunts I went on with Gladio and Noctis… Those had been **_people._ **

_“Oho! Well done, my girl!”_ Ardyn fake-congratulated me. _“Happy to have your new guardian along to do all the work for you?”_

His laugh faded as further guilt settled over me.

_This is all too much. It can’t be real. I’m not here. This has to be a dream. It has to._

In the next room we found another report about the disease detailing how it was spreading to near epidemic levels and now more daemons were cropping up. Was that what had ultimately happened to the city? Was that why this place was so _empty?_

_I don’t want to be here anymore…_

_“The most fascinating tidbit about your dear_ **_Prompto_** _…”_

“Huh?” I looked up, heart jolting. “Where is he?!”

_“Turns out he’s not so empty either. He’s got quite the ‘skeleton in his closet’.”_

_...What? What does that mean?! Why bring up Prompto? What does he have to do with any of this?!_

_Is he saying that… No. He isn’t. He_ **_can’t be._ **

_This is all just a dream. That’s it. Prompto’s not an MT._ **_He can’t be._ **

_Then why would Ardyn use that word?! Why…?_

_Would he lie about that?_

_Question: Has Ardyn ever actually lied to us?_

My mind went blank. He helped us find Titan and though things went south, it actually worked. He took us to safety after. Then there was those ruins we delved into with Aranea. He’d said he’d help us find mythril. And indirectly, _he did._ The only time he had ever been somewhat dishonest… was with his disguises. 

I fell back into one of the swivel chairs by a desk. “There’s… We couldn’t have.”

Ravus turned toward me.

_“How could we?_ All those people… And those MTs… We’ve…”

“_______—”

“Have we been _killing Promptos?_ _Over and over?!”_

I sat shaking and shivering, breath picking up as I tried to hold back my emotions.

“No. I can’t-I can’t do this anymore. I want to wake up. Please wake me up now!”

I slipped my hands under my broken glasses.

“Please wake up now! _Please_ wake up! I’m tired of this dream!” My voice cracked as Ravus stepped closer. “Please just send me home. I want to go home. I just want to go _home.”_

He watched with painful sympathy.

“Please send me home! _Please.”_

Some dripped from my eye past my palm. And then another. And another.

“I don’t want to be here anymore…!”

_What was it? That phrase to get you home?_

“There’s no place like home,” I chanted. I even kicked my heels together for further effect. “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. _There’s no place like home…!”_

I sniffed.

“There’s… There’s no place…”

And sniffed again.

“Like home… There’s no… place…”

_Why am I not waking up?!_

_How many Promptos have we killed? How many normal people? Am I a murderer?_ **_Am I?_ **

_No, I can’t be. I just can’t be. They were monsters, not human anymore._

_But they were people once! They had lives and hopes and dreams! They had families! Friends! People they cared about!_

_How could I have done all that without knowing? Why have I hardly questioned it?_

The floodgates were open and the waters fell upon a broken dam. I couldn’t handle it anymore. And so it all came pouring out.

How pathetic I must have looked. Ardyn was surely laughing as my croaking sobs breached what silence we had when he wasn’t speaking. Or was he just looking down upon me? Perhaps both.

Ravus watched with a pained and heavy heart. He had never been the greatest at consoling people other than his sister. So he opted to sit next to me on another chair and wait out the storm.

_How could we… How could_ **_they_ ** _have put me here? I don’t belong here. I never have._

_Prompto…_

_...I’m_ **_so sorry._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are prime sad boy hours


	10. Apocalypsis Astrārum - Pars Tria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reunion...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine’s Day! My gift to you is another chapter~! <3

We ought to keep moving.” Ravus stood and gazed around the dark room. “The daemon that has been hunting us could return at any moment.”

I sat on my swivel chair, trying to dry tears that would not stop falling. The sobbing had ceased but my body had an abundance of pent up sadness to go through. My legs couldn’t find the will to stand.

“Come, we must find Noctis.”

A few more tears slid down my cheeks. My hand held my cracked glasses. I did not respond as Ravus walked past me, expecting me to follow. When he realized I hadn’t, he turned back.

“_______?”

I simply shook my head.

“We mustn’t linger. If we stay any longer…”

I sniffled and wiped the tear stains away. I couldn’t meet his gaze, unable to speak. My throat hurt a little. Ravus changed his stance, and watched me patronizingly.

“That is it, then? You’d rather wait here for death than continue on? You will let _him_ affect you as such?”

I sniffed again and shrugged. I had nothing to say. All I could think of was Prompto and how many copies of him we must have killed on our way here. How many copies of _himself_ he had killed. What a painful existence. Did he know?

Ravus marched forward and grabbed my shoulder roughly.

“This is _exactly_ why I loathed your brother,” he hissed. “Your entire family _reeks_ of cowardice. Noctis has done better in these latter days. All _you_ have to show is _one life spared.”_

Another few tears fell guiltily. His hand pushed me back a little. I still couldn’t look at him.

“Are you really going to sit here feeling _sorry_ for yourself?”

Another short shove.

“What of the people who _brought you here?_ Would you let them _die alone?”_

My eyes snapped up to his.

“Are you going to _abandon them?”_

The raw and rough emotion in his last words hit my heart. It was like he had experienced the exact pain he spoke of and had yet to overcome it.

“Or are you going to prove yourself?”

He withdrew his arm.

“You can protect Noctis all you wish, but that will not stop _others_ from perishing, whether it be at your hands or another’s. _You_ must decide what to do with your abilities. You cannot save _everyone.”_

I watched him speak with such disdain in his voice. I knew it deep in my heart that not everyone could be saved. That didn't mean it _hurt_ any less that I couldn’t do anything about it.

“They are _daemons_ . They will not return your _sympathy._ And your friend has more freedom and personality than any of his copies could ever _hope_ to replicate.”

_Prompto…_

“Will you let him _die_ in this godsforsaken place by himself?”

“No…!” I croaked instantly. Ravus eyed me with fire in his eyes.

“Then let us _find him_ . And maybe teach that bastard _Ardyn_ a lesson while we’re at it.”

He stalked off to the doorway. I paused for a second, considering his words. There wasn’t anything for me here. What good would dying do? Especially when there were people who might need me?

My legs ached as I forced myself to stand very slowly, overcoming my fear as I shoved down everything I had just learned. There was a pain in my shoulders as I straightened myself with effort. Noctis was fine on his own. But where _was_ Prompto? And what of Gladio and Ignis?

_With Ravus with me, I think I can force myself along well enough._

I wanted to thank him but the words just didn’t come.

_I don’t want to be here so the sooner we get out, the better._

Our next path was extremely linear. A narrow corridor and some stairs led us to a fork in the hallway, one way leading to a rest area and the other further down. We went left to continue on and found a room with large control panels, perhaps a giant breaker room. A couple MTs ambushed us inside.

I could hardly find the strength to summon my sword to help Ravus. Something empty had crawled into my chest and was slowly filling it. The MTs disappeared quickly.

We left the room and went on. The hallway had some more boxes in it and lots of panels along the walls every ten feet or so. The lighting remained dim, though Ravus’ tall statue wasn’t helping any as I followed right behind him. He blocked most of my vision.

Another breaker room waited for us. A couple more MTs lied motionless on the floor. The slightest flutter of fear hit me. Thankfully, they didn’t rise. We skirted around them, finding a final couple slips of paper with bone-chilling reports:

_‘The infected aren’t disappearing—they’re turning into daemons. That we failed to see this defies belief. Yet dwelling on it avails us naught in the face of daemon threat. Though of human origin, they’re unlike the specimens bred for MTs. They cannot be contained.’_

_Why in the hell did they_ **ever** _think this was a good idea?!_ I thought, heart rate spiking up.

_‘More than half of the keep’s inhabitants are now daemons. There’s no hope of neutralizing them, not with control lost over the MTs. Outside, the city swarms with yet more daemons—former citizens. There’s no escape.’_

My heart sank further with each word. The room felt like it was _freezing._ The whole _city_ turned into daemons? What the hell were we supposed to do?! How could we even out from here?!

_We cannot get out. We cannot get out. We hear drums, drums in the deep._

_They are coming._

“W-What…” The papers shook almost violently in my hands. My voice could barely hold a whisper. “What do we do?”

“We’ll decide that when we find the Crystal.” Ravus took the paper from my hands and set it down. “Focus on your friends. They must be here somewhere…”

He led me into the next small room. A keycard upgrade stand rested in front of us next to a control panel desk. I swiped mine and claimed access to the next area.

Another MT lied supposedly dead on ground as we exited the breaker room. Ravus stepped over it and carried on. I followed his lead.

_The whole city, all daemons. Just daemons. Everywhere—_

Something latched onto my foot and I practically shrieked. Pain _burned_ into my leg. Ravus whipped around as I summoned my sword to harshly whack at the thing wildly, nearly severing my own leg off. Ravus gave it a final kick and the clone inside collapsed into dusty mist. Fear-fueled adrenaline caused me to stomp at it only for its remaining armor to blow up in my face.

High-pitched ringing screeched in my ears. My hands fumbled in front of me as my body jerked with discomfort.

_I hate it, I hate it, I hate it— Make it stop!_

My arms latched around the person closest to me. Ravus released a breath and stared at me, unsure of how to feel. The ringing faded slowly. A gentle hand patted my head awkwardly as my shallow and shaky breathing deepened to a normal pace.

“If you’re finished…” He mumbled. A blaring _siren_ cut him off, the hallway lights turning an ugly, _bright_ red. A muffled whine emitted from my throat as it hurt my eyes.

_This is too much!_

Some sort of mechanic activated nearby and shook the corridor around us.

“Let’s move.” Ravus softly pushed me off him and hurried past the next door.

The red light blared over the open room, domed much like the ones with the elevators and where I’d fallen and met Ravus. Tons of catwalks surrounded the center structure, which was closed off. The floor around was strewn with Magitek bodies.

“...mobilizing dormant Magitek infantry.”

The quake we’d felt earlier was evident in the platform slowly rising. Something moved on top of it. The MTs stood slowly, some staying immobile. Then someone's voice echoed faintly from the other side.

“...en more of ‘em…!” It said. My heart _lurched._

“Noctis!” I forgot my fear and ran forward as the platform still rose. “Noct!”

Ravus caught up to me before I could try and fail at climbing the damn thing. He pulled me back.

“No, Noct is up there—!” I shoved him off.

“There are other ways,” he argued. His head looked to the right. “Those should lead towards.”

A series of stairs and more catwalks seemed to line the _entire_ room and Ravus herded me toward them. My feet stumbled a bit as I looked back at flashes of light as Noctis used the Ring. My chest contracted almost painfully.

“We’ll be there soon,” I promised quietly.

The alarm going off nearly gave me a headache as we climbed and turned and climbed some more. A few MTs blocked our path at some intervals, effectively stalling us as the middle platform kept rising. Some paths were blocked off but we climbed over them. I tried to keep an eye on Noctis as we went up, but my eyes couldn’t glimpse him.

Finally the platform stilled and we had a chance to catch up. All that separated us was another catwalk and a final ladder. The alarm stilled for a moment as the voice returned.

“Security clearance raised to level six. Access to level six zones authorized.”

_Oh shit, mine isn’t—!_

I took it out. “Should I toss it?”

The alarm continued to blare as we reached the ladder. Ardyn’s voice could be heard trying to speak over it but I couldn’t tell what he was saying.

“We hurry.” Ravus pointed to a Noctis sprinting away from the next upgrade stand. I was hit with a jolt of excitement and relief. “You first.”

I started on the ladder, going as quick as I safely could. Labored grunting came from below me. I glanced down and remembered: _Ravus was short one arm._ I paused.

“Are you okay?” I called down.

_“Go.”_

My heart fluttered nervously as one arm let go to reach for him.

“I can make it—find the security panel and stop that wretched _sound.”_

His words were firm enough that I hesitantly began climbing again. My head was starting to hurt a bit from how loud the alarm was.

I pulled myself over the edge of the ladder and knelt down to help Ravus, who was still further down.

“Are you incapable of hearing?” He pulled himself up a bar. “I said to _hurry.”_

“But…”

_“Now.”_

There was a flash nearby. A horde of MTs and even a _daemon_ were ganging up on my brother. Fear hit me like a truck. I scrambled to my feet and sprinted to the stairs. Railing blocked the top of them but I climbed over it and hurried to swipe my security card. The usual voice lines sounded over the speakers. The red lights calmed to the usual dimness and the alarm quieted down.

_Noct!_

My feet carried me swiftly over the catwalks to where my brother was now heading toward a door with green lights.

“Wait, Noct!”

I picked the pace right as he went through. The MTs on the ground fizzled from their combat with him. As I ran around them to chase Noctis, I tripped as one caught my leg again.

_“No!”_ I kicked at it. “Stop! _Please!”_

_“You really_ are _helpless without your friends babysitting you,”_ Ardyn teased over the speakers. The MT went up in flames like the other and my legs flared with the sharp and burning pain. I dragged myself away only to let my head flop on the floor. _“Oh… Crying again, are we?”_

The lump in my throat was wound so tight I couldn’t breathe. I sniffled and tried to hold the tears in.

_I was_ ** _so close._** _It’s not_ **fair.**

Ravus came up behind me, panting from his efforts to climb up but otherwise just fine. I pulled myself into a sitting position as a few rogue tears fell.

_I'll make it to him._ **I must.**

-

“Which way did he go?”

As soon as I had collected myself, I stood and answered Ravus’ question by marching to the door Noctis had gone through. Its lights turned red. It didn’t open. I tried pushing on it. Nothing. I tried pulling the raised accents. Nothing.

“What?” I breathed. “But he—!”

I shoved myself against it.

“He went through it here. I _saw_ that he did, I _swear!”_

My voice cracked a little. I slumped against the door.

“This isn’t _fair.”_

I swallowed thickly.

“This isn’t _fucking_ **_fair!_** _”_

My faint healing magic welled in me as I forced my arms toward the door in an attempt to break it down. It all amounted to nothing.

It was getting so hard to contain myself. The lights, the sound, the taunting, the revelations, it was all too much. I took labored breaths to calm myself. Whenever they began to speed up, I fought to slow them.

_No, I can’t break down here. Not now. Not yet. Wait for later._ **_Please_ ** _wait for later._

“We’ll have to try another way,” Ravus told me. I gulped in a huge amount of air. “The emperor’s throne lies inside that dome. There may be a key in the other corridor.”

_The throne…? He kept his throne in_ here? **_Why?_ **

I straightened myself up a bit. “Okay. M-Maybe… Does it loop around?”

“It may,” Ravus answered. “We’d best try it.”

I held my head with my hand as we walked around the platform to the other doorway. The light in here was too much. Still too red. Trying to calm myself down wasn’t working as well as I’d hoped.

_What can you feel? Five things you can touch?_

I swallowed again. There was the cool air, my clothes… The floor under my feet. My leg as my hand hit it reaching for the end of my jacket. My own breath as it came out heavily.

_Four things you can see…?_

I lowered my hand to see the green lights on the next door. Then there was Ravus in his white coat. The catwalks nearby and the platform.

_Three things you can hear?_

I could hear my own breathing. Everything was rather quiet in here. Our footsteps counted. Then the door opened with some mechanical whirring.

_Two things you can smell._

Metal. Cold metallic smells were everywhere in the keep. The whole place was made of it so it made sense. But there was also a lot of dust. Given that everyone had turned into daemons and I didn’t know how long ago, that also made sense, too, since no one was around to do any cleaning.

_One thing you can taste._

My own mouth. It wasn’t particularly noticeable. There was also the salt from my tears, but it was faint and fading.

Now feeling a _little_ better, I followed Ravus into the new corridor. It instantly turned left and led us to a boring room filled with boxes and desks. We scoured the room for a key and found nothing. Into the hallway we went.

There was so little to note. Panels, dim lights, and a box here and there were all we could see. It was long, too. My anxiety amped with every step. This was a waste of time, I could feel it. Each step took us further and further away.

_“Not long now,”_ Ardyn said. _“Just one more moment and you’ll be reunited! Oh, won’t that be wonderful?”_

I slowed to a stop. Ravus did the same so he could turn to me.

“What is it now?” he asked.

“Where does this lead?” I asked in return.

“To a set of offices. We may yet find a key or card there.”

I shook my head. “It’s taking too long.”

“And?”

“It’s _taking_ too long.”

“Then what would you suggest?”

My shoulders dropped. I _wanted_ to say that we should turn around but the words wouldn’t come out. I wanted to _point_ behind me but my arms wouldn’t move. All I could say was, “It’s _taking too long.”_

“Our only other option is to turn around.”

I nodded vigorously. _“Yes.”_

“You’re _sure?”_

I nodded again. “Please. Noct is there.”

Ravus eyed me and then the path backwards. He sighed. “It _is_ a long way to the offices.”

He moved past me.

“We’ll wait for a short while. If he does not come, we head back here.”

“Okay…!”

My heart began a nervous dance as we headed back. A soft tugging feeling pulled on my chest. Yes, this _must_ be the right way…! Noctis was coming back!

We passed through the room with no leads and into the short hallway back to the throne room. The door whirred open. My feet padded forward, heading around to the front of the platform ahead of Ravus. _Voices_ could be heard speaking there…!

“Noct…?” I asked aloud, voice pitched higher with hope.

“...less you’d rather _not_ be.”

“Ignis!”

I raced around to see…

… _all of them._

“_______?” Noctis asked in disbelief.

“There you are.” Gladio smirked. “Told you we couldn’t be rid of her so easily.”

“Are you alright?” Ignis came forward to inspect me. “Noct told us what happened—”

But I had tunnel vision.

**_”Prompto!”_ **

“Huh—?” I interrupted the blonde with a smothering hug. “H-Hey, _______… —Eugh!”

I squeezed him tightly, tears leaking out of my eyes once more, but this time for a happy reason.

“Prompto, I’m _so sorry!”_ I cried. He returned the hug gently but squeezed me a little, too. “I didn’t know— I didn’t realize—!”

I sniffled a little as Ignis recognized my companion.

“Thank goodness she had you,” he told Ravus.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Prompto told me. “I’m alright now.”

“A-Ardyn told me s-something; please tell me it’s not true…!” I whispered, unable to speak any louder. I felt a bigger hand pat me on the back. “We haven’t been— _killing…”_

“...Yeah.” Prompto had _never_ been this quiet. “It’s true. We’ve… got the same codes.”

A true sob wracked me.

_We’ve been killing Promptos_ **_._ **

“Hey, don’t make a big deal out of it,” Gladio said, pulling me off the poor man in question. I looked at him in confused horror.

“We’ve been _killing_ **_Promptos_** _,”_ I emphasized, reaching for his hand to squeeze comfortingly. “A-And the daemons, they’re—”

“We know,” Noctis said. “It’s best not to think about it.”

I stared at him. There he was. _Finally._

My hand slipped from Prompto’s. I took a step toward Noct.

“You didn’t hear me,” was all I could find to say.

“...Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Ardyn doesn’t let anything slip by.”

I bridged the gap between us and hugged him just as hard as I did Prompto. Instant relief crashed onto me. Hugging Noctis was almost like being _home_ again. Right where I knew I needed to be. My breathing got shaky again. He hugged me back hesitantly and then firmly. His own breaths sounded like hisses.

“_______, I’m _sorry.”_

I shook my head. “Please don’t be.”

“I-I was…”

“There was nothing to be done,” Ignis said for me. He sounded closer than before.

“We’re all together now,” Gladio assured us. He also sounded closer. “And nothing’s gonna get in our way. Right?”

“Right,” Prompto agreed. I gave Noctis one last squeeze before breaking away to hug Gladio.

“Ravus makes okay moral support.” Gladio’s hugs were big and protective, like a big brother might give. “But yours is better.”

He gave me a hard pat on the back when I pulled away. “Damn straight. Don’t you go looking down now that we’re all here, okay?”

For the first time in _hours,_ I smiled. With a nod and I went to Prompto again. His hugs were warm and uplifting, like the supportive best friend he was, but they were also reassuring.

“We love you, Prompto, please don’t forget that,” I told him, inhaling and sniffing. “We missed you so much.”

“I won’t,” he said as we broke apart. Last was Ignis, but he was never least. None of them were.

“I’m glad you’re _safe.”_ Ignis sighed in great relief as he pulled me to him. His hugs were warm, too, but there was a comfort in them that was difficult to replicate. It was like a cozy log fire, not too hot but strong enough to feel safe in. “Don’t stray too far again.”

“Hey, I can’t always help it…” I smiled sheepishly this time as I rejoined Noctis. My eyes caught Ravus’ where he was minding his own business at a respectful distance. “Oh, yeah. I found Ravus when I fell.”

I summoned my sword. Noctis inhaled audibly. I walked over to where Ravus was standing.

“You should give it to him,” I told him. “Like you wanted.”

Ravus glanced at the sword and then at me. He took the king’s sword reluctantly. His eyes read of doubt. I wondered why.

“Noctis,” his gaze tore from mine to the prince’s, “this has been in my possession since Insomnia’s fall. Forgive me for not returning it to you sooner.”

Noctis’ eyes were glued to his father’s royal arm. I could see and nearly _feel_ the pain in them. A light tug came at my chest.

“Thanks,” he managed to choke out. “...All your sacrifices have not been in vain. I promise.”

His hand lifted, slightly trembling, to reach out for the sword. We all waited with bated breath.

“Um…”

Noctis’ eyebrows furrowed.

_Uh oh._

_Is it_ **_permanent?_ **

Ravus sighed.

“Maybe it’s to do with _that_ thing?” Prompto pointed up at the giant red device hanging above us. It was diamond shaped and glowing, a humming sound emitting from it. I must have missed it in my emotional tunnel vision.

“It _isn’t,”_ Ravus muttered. He turned to me, now staring disapprovingly. I shrunk back. “Would you care to _show_ them?”

My arms met each other in front of me. I shook my head. Ravus sighed and held the sword towards me. Once again, though more quickly than last time, the Sword of the Father lit up and swooped towards me, colliding with my very soul and circling me along with Ithilcalad. My friends gasped with wide eyes.

“No _way,”_ Prompto thought aloud.

“I’m sorry.” I lowered my head, guilt resting heavy on my chest. “I didn’t know it was permanent.”

“Then… that would mean that…” Ignis had a pained look on his face.

“Guess they really _are_ siblings.” Gladio crossed his arms. “Huh…”

“So you were telling the truth,” Noctis hissed out. I nodded meekly. “Great.”

He walked forward to me.

“Then I guess you’ve earned it.”

_…What?_

I looked up at him in surprise.

“I don’t think Dad’s soul would have bonded with yours if he didn’t want to.”

He reached me.

“After everything, I think you deserve it.”

My eyes went wide. “But I haven’t _done_ anything…!”

“But you will,” Noctis said. His voice sounded croaky. “I’ll help you.

“…It’s what he wanted, after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Sephiroth voice* ReUnIoN
> 
> They’re finally all together again! Let’s hope it stays that way >:)


End file.
